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July 23, 2010

Six miles into an eight mile run the other day, in preparation for the Great North Run, I committed what can only be described as rock heresy.

I’d chosen to listen to Led Zeppelin’s triple live album How The West Was Won on my iPod knowing that the vast majority of tracks on it, are energising.

Then along came Moby Dick and I skipped it because I didn’t want to listen to John Bonham’s 10-minute plus drum solo.

I’ve felt guilty ever since because like most rock fans, I happen to believe Bonzo was the greatest drummer who ever beat a set of skins and there are times when I can happily listen to one of his epic solos.

But not when I’m pounding the streets.

Drum solos are invariably the spinal tap moments of rock concerts. Indeed going back 30 years or so, a lot of my mates cited their prime reason for becoming fans of punk rather than metal, progressive or hard rock devotess was because they were sick of attending gigs which featured minute upon mindnumbing minute of solos from guitarist, keyboardist and drummer.

Even now, drum solos still split opinion of fans of our genre and if you don’t believe me, just check out how many people take their toilet breaks when it’s that time.

I’ve seen some awful drum solos, some boring ones, some average ones but several which were so good, they were in danger of giving drummers a good name.

Not having been fortunate enough to witness Bonham in the flesh, the best drummer I have gawped at is Neil Peart of Rush.

Peart is more of a percussionist than an outright drummer and his range of instruments take this above the norm.

Throw in the fact, his legendary solos are played to a backdrop of jazz music and film and it’s fair to say the toilets are relatively quiet when he’s in the spotlight.

The same was true of the late, great Cozy Powell, who drummed for Rainbow, MSG and was the lesser known P in ELP Mark II.

Powell’s party piece was to drum, accompanied by Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, which created quite a glorious din.

If Bonham, Peart and Powell are somewhat obvious choices as favourite drummers, my fourth choice certainly isn’t.

Jerry Mercer of April Wine stood out because he was big, bald and bearded. But had he been Mr Average with short back and sides, I’d still have been mesmerised by his drumming.

His speciality was to drum one hand at a time, creating the effect of riotous action, such was his skills with the foot pedals.

Mind you, if ever the Canadian melodic rockers release a live album, much as I appreciated his talent, I think I’d still skip the drum solo during an eight mile run!

Self Made Man’s weekly blog will back back on August 14

Ian Murtagh

July 16, 2010

I was told I needed a holiday the other day. It’s true, I do. Nevertheless, you don’t necessarily like being told your fuel gauge is running on empty.

So I looked in the mirror. Did my complexion betray exhaustion? Had anxiety lines suddenly appeared on my face? Grey hairs? Negative, negative, negative.

Then the truth emerged. No, it was not how I looked which led to the throwaway comment. Huge relief.It was what I wrote, on my blog, on this website? Oh dear.

Now I appreciate not every entry can be Shakespearian in its prose, as musically perceptive as a Nick Kent album review or as witty as a Nick Hornby novel.

Little did I realise, however, that personal standards had dipped so low that one of my few remaining readers was dying of boredom.

Thankfully, my worst fears weren’t realised (or were you just being nice, Mrs G?)

Apparently, or should that be allegedly, my blog was still an interesting read but there was a giveaway sign that writers’ fatigue was kicking in. For I’d started writing about my summer holiday a full month before it had even started.

But beneath this cloak of polite diplomacy lay a hidden truth for I have been struggling for material in recent weeks.

A blank canvas has its merits but when you haven’t been to a concert since April and more significantly haven’t bought a new album in weeks, inspiration is inevitably in short supply.

Twelve months ago I was in rock nirvana, having seen AC/DC at Hampden Park and Neil Young in Dublin within a fortnight of each other.

This year, though 2010 started well enough concert-wide, I haven’t been to a gig since Mark Knopfler’s Newcastle homecoming.

Similarly, while I bought quite a few albums between January and May, I can’t recall the last one I bought.

It’s not as if I’m bored with my existing library for it would take me more than a month to listen to every song on it back to back.

But I need some gold-dust sprinkled on my musical psyche, I need a concert to go to, I need to listen to some new music.

Most of all, however, I need a holiday. Five days and counting……

Ian Murtagh

July 9, 2010

I’m  a technophobe and proud of it.

Ok, I have an email address because I require one and I’m computer literate only in so far as I have mastered what I need to know for work purposes.

And yes, before you question my sanity, I do think the internet was a rather good invention and I scan (is that the right word?!) the world wide web as regularly and voraciously as the next man.

But I hate so much else of 21st century gadgetry. Twitter, as far as I’m concerned is for twits and Facebook for those who are too lazy to pick up a phone to talk to their mates or arrange a pint down the local**

Mobile phones, I accept, are a necessity and work recently upgraded me to a blackberry but whenever I’m off or on holiday, I invariably switch it off. After all, most mates I want to talk to have my landline number.

But there is one piece of equipment I am still madly in love with and have been since the day I bought my first one – the iPod.

Quite frankly, I couldn’t live without one and if I ever doubted this fact, spending two weeks in London convinced me.

I’m onto my second iPod, having upgraded to an 8G (is that the right measurement?!) three years ago.

Now I know there’ll be those of you who scoff at its limited capacity, no doubt boasting about the 160G model you’ve invested in but I’m more than happy with the contraption.

For I enjoy changing the music on it every other week or so rather than having my entire music library which at the count stretches to around 10,000 song available at the flick of a switch.

And as you might have gathered by now, I’m not particularly interested in having photos or DVDs downloaded on to my iPod.

Firstly, if I ever took pictures (which I don’t and haven’t ever since forgetting to take camera on honeymoon), I’d send the film to the local Boots store for developing and secondly, music DVDs should be watched in the comfort of your own lounge with a nice glass of red and a bottle of Old Speckled Hen on hand.

Anyway, back to my wonderful iPod. It’s finally allowed me to make my peace with London man. For years,  whenever I was travelling on the tube, I’d make eye contact, smile at them, even try to talk to them. But to no avail.

London man was in a little commuter world of his own, staring into space, oblivious to those around him and seeminly content to endure the black hole existence of life on the Piccadilly line at rush hour.

So having to take the trip from Earls Court to Wimbledon for 13 days, I made the fateful decision to lock myself into this strange world, this parallel universe that excludes all others.

After buying a paper (I refuse to pick up one of those free ones on principle!), and with sunglasses shutting out my wistful stares, I switch on the iPod, plonk myself down on the one available seat remaining on the 8.57 to Wimbledon and hey presto, I’m transformed into commuter man.

The iPod stays on for my daily cup of coffee in Wimbledon (not to be confused with Wimbledon tennis or Wimbledon village _ in fact most travellers heading for the courts get off at Southfields but that’s another story), for the walk up the hill until I set up for the day at my allotted desk in the wonderful media centre at the All England Club.

And then about 12 hours later, after a day’s tennis/work and a few beers, it’s back on again for the journey back to Earls Court.

Plugging my iPod into my computer on returning to civilisation, I discovered I’d listened to 593 songs over the fortnight, 48 different bands and five genres.

And scanning the `recently played’ page, which tells you the specific time something was played, I could recall exactly where I was, who I was looking at or what I was doing when certain tracks were blasting into my ears.

Suddenly songs such as AC/DC’s Girl’s Got Rhythm and ZZ Top’s Legs took on added significance!

**Sections of this article have been deliberately exagerrated just to annoy mates of mine with geekish tendencies who might, perchance, read this article!

Ian Murtagh

July 2, 2010

To look or not to look. That is the question that has split rock fans for years.

I’m talking about setlists and whether you want to know what a particular band is going to play ahead of the gig you’re attending.

Years ago in those days before the internet the chances are you had to rely on someone who’d been to a concert if you wanted information.

I remember going to see Rainbow at Newcastle City Hall during their Down To Earth tour and on returning home, my brother David, who was due to see them the following night, demanded to know everything.

What was the opener? (Eyes Of The World), how did Graham Bonnett manage singing Ronnie James Dio songs (pretty well) and crucially did Ritchie Blackmore smash his strat (unfortunately no though he did the next night)!

A few weeks later I saw AC/DC at the same venue but when I rang my mates Mike and Paul to tell them what it was like, they almost put the phone down on me insisting that they wanted everything to be a surprise when they went the next night.

Personally, I love to know what a band has in store for me and so on Wednesday, there was only one thing to do when I switched on my laptop.

Immediately, I clicked on to a Rush fans’ website to read all about the opening night of their Time Machine US tour which kicked off in New Mexico and will hopefully come to the UK next year.

Like a lot of fans’ websites, the authors are very much aware that while there are many fans like me who want to know the setlist, there are an equal number who don’t and therefore, they have `spoilers’ to warn those blissfully happy to be kept in the dark.

Without giving too much away, I would imagine the vast majority of Rush fans will be delighted with the songs they have chosen from their vast back catalogue.

It’s giving nothing away to say that they open the second half of their set with the entire Moving Pictures album – something that has been well publicised for several months.

But what I like about the Canadian power trio is that they are not afraid to leave out well-established fans’ favourites and equally, they are prepared to play songs they may have written years ago and never played live.

And so on their last Snakes and Arrows tour, they re-introduced Circumstances from 1978′s Hemispheres and Entre Nous from 1980′s Permanent Waves but dropped both 2112 and Xanadu.

This time they are playing one song from one of their late-80s albums never before played live, reintroducing several old favourites and of course giving fans a taste of their forthcoming album.

The great benefit of knowing a setlist is that it fuels debate among fans and inevitably gives bands, or perhaps more particularly their managers, valuable feedback.

I don’t think it was coincidence, for example, that recently UFO have played one or two songs from the days when Paul Chapman was their lead guitarist, because on their fans’ forums, the consensus was they stuck to rigidly to their Strangers In The Night setlist.

And Deep Purple dropped their idea of playing Machine Head in its pure album form because the feeling among band and fans alike (though not me) was that the order didn’t work live.

Then you’ve got The Scorpions who took interactivity to it logical conclusion by asking fans to vote for the songs they wanted to hear on stage, guaranteeing the most popular tracks in their setlist.

I’ll continue to scan the worldwide web to find out what my favourite bands are playing and there will be those of you equally passionate about your music who will go to any lengths to ensure that when you attend a concert, you haven’t a clue what to expect.

Whatever your choice, I’ll just say this. From what I’ve read, the Rush tour promises to be a cracker.

June 25, 2010

I am writing this blog from the Media Centre at Wimbledon four hours before

England kick off their make-or-break game against Slovenia.

Not that the outcome is of particular interest to the good folk of the All

England Club.

For Wimbledon is a football-free zone with all requests for the big screen in

front of Henman Hill/Murray Mount to beam the match refused.

So for those without radios, the only chance of keeping in touch with events in

South Africa will be to push noses against the windows of the aforementioned

Media Centre where, I would imagine, a significant proportion of televisions

belong to the British press corps will be tuned to BBC One rather than BBC Two

or the 22 other channels which offer us blanket coverage of tennis.

But it occurred to me that not only has Wimbledon turned its back on the World

Cup, it’s one of the few sporting events I’ve been to where music does not

provide an accompaniment.

Perhaps only golf can be compared to tennis in its obsession with silence as

competitors prepare to serve, drive or putt..

Even snooker, for heaven’s sake, now offers musical introductions at the

Crucible as players enter the auditorium.

It joins an array of sports in which loud music is now a constant backdrop.

Judging by the Vuvuzela craze sweeping South Africa, music could yet be replaced

by that tuneless horn as the official sound of sport.

But for years, music, in particular rock music, has boomed out of tannoys across

the globe.

Take athletics, for example. Emerson Lake and Palmer’s Fanfare For The Common

Man has become so much part of the sport, I’m sure many people will be under the

mistaken impression it was specifically written for the sport.

Cricket has not always been associated with music but in today’s Twenty20 world,

every player has his own particular track as he walks to the crease and in

recent times I’ve heard Led Zeppelin’s Black Dog, Free’s Alright Now and Brian

Adams’ Summer of 69 introduce batsmen.

In the past, I  have commented on how virtually every football club now has its

own introductory music for when the two teams emerge from the tunnel.

And while Everton are famous for the Z Cars theme, Liverpool for You’ll Never

Walk Alone and Sunderland for Prokofiev’s Romeo And Juliet, many clubs choose

rock tracks.

Newcastle used to play AC/DC’s Thunderstruck, Wolves have for more than a decade

identified themselves with Jeff Beck’s Hi-Ho Silver Lining while even Hartlepool

chose the live version of AC/DC’s Whole Lotta Rosie,  mainly because their

mascot was a monkey called H’Angus. (Work it out).

Probably the rock song that’s been played most in  a sporting environment is

Survivor’s Eye Of A Tiger.

Because of its Rocky link, it will forever be the chosen sound of boxing but 20

years ago, Leeds United adopted the song and it helped turn Elland Road into one

of football’s most intimidating grounds.

Motorsport and rock music also have a bond.. Formula One, Moto GPs, rallycross

and speedway all  choose tracks from the genre to fuel the atmosphere while

petrol-head programmes such as Top Gear, whose lead presenter Jeremy Clarkson is

an unashamed disciple of the riff, lean towards loud, brash noise as its aural

ally.

But Wimbledon? No, I can’t see it happening. I love the place and love its aura.

Putting a roof over Centre Court is one thing but piping music to the masses?

Dan Maskell and Fred Perry can rest in peace. It simply won’t happen.

Ian Murtagh

June 18, 2010

It’s become something of a vacational ritual, an annual ceremony to announce a fortnight of relaxation and indulgence.

Day one of my summer holiday always starts in similar fashion. Slap on the factor 10, crack open a bottle of chilled beer, position the sun-bed in prime position and then, stretch out, switch on the iPod and listen to Pink Floyd’s Shine On You Crazy Diamond.

And for the next few minutes, all the cares of the big, bad world I’ve left behind in England float away as David Gilmour’s melliflous licks and Rick Wright’s haunting siren transport me to a place somewhere between paradise and eternity.

It’s always made me laugh when critics of the rock music dismiss the genre as a sound incapable of creating a mood.

Of course, if Black Sabbath. AC/DC or Airbourne were the universal template, these cynics might have a point but across the rock spectrum, there’s a sound to accompany every emotion, each situation and every environment.

Pink Floyd, with tracks such as Echoes, Marooned and the aforementioned SOYCD, provide a classy soundtrack to a summer in the sun but they are not alone.

Indie bands such as The Thrills, The Delays and the new, excellent Mumford and Sons sound so much more alive with a solar backdrop.

But so too do blues artists such as Eric Clapton, ZZ Top, Free and even Led Zeppelin with lazy epics such as Tea For One and I’m Gonna Crawl.

If the blues and summer rays are a snug fit, then so too are pounding riffs and driving.

With over 3,000 miles ahead of the Murtagh clan next month, music will provide an essential safeguard against motorway madness.

Not withstanding the fact that my dear lady will insist on listening to Christine Aguilera’s new album at least a dozen times, rock will be the fuel that transports us from the port at Amsterdam to our Croatian destination.

There are some bands such as Zeppelin, Aerosmith, Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Eagles, The Who and Deep Purple who my wife will tolerate.

Sadly, Rush and Neil Young are off limits and so they must remain a very private indulgence.

But if most of my listening will be done either on the sunbed or in the car this summer, there will also be music on my iPod for other times.

With the Great North Run just three months away and training lagging behind the required schedule, I’ll need a chunk of heavy rock to enthuse me into action _ AC/DC, UFO, The Answer and the Scorpions are four bands with energising qualities.

And at the end of a long day of too much red wine, sun and olives, that’s the time to stick on Neil Young’s Harvest, Springsteen’s Tom Joad or perhaps some Counting Crows.

Roll on July 22….

Ian Murtagh

June 11, 2010

A couple of hours before heading out to the MetroCentre to watch the premier screening of the Rush Documentary `Beyond The Lighted Stage,’ I remarked to one of my kids that Matt, the mate I was meeting there, would probably arrive wearing his Rush T-shirt.

I was right. The thing was, however, he was not alone. In fact myself, dressed in a Timberland short-sleeved grey shirt stuck out like a sore thumb as we gathered outside Screen Five.

Of the 150 fans who turned up, I would guess that at least three-quarters of them were wearing Rush tops. I was the one who looked the odd one out.

Matt recently turned up to his son Andrew’s 18th birthday party wearing an Iron Maiden T-shirt. I’ve never asked him but I would estimate that he has around 30 such tops to choose from.

My mate, the bastard, is possibly the only person I know over 45 who can still get away with wearing the same clothes he did 25 years ago.

Matt, the bastard, still boasts the same waist size he did as a university student, mainly due to a fitness regime which enables him to compete regularly with international swimmers of his age group.

He’s also the only bloke I know who still headbangs as enthusiastically as he did when Number Of The Beast and Permanent Waves were first released without any hint of embarrassment.

The hair may be thinner (he’s follically cloned with Alex Lifeson – he took great delight at comparisons with the Rush guitarist when each boasted golden manes, he’s probably less enthused now!!) but Matt was probably one of only a handful of those 40-somethings on Monday night who was able to carry the `concert-goer’  look with any degree of success.

Ironically, the only T-shirt of such kind I own is a Rush one from the recent Snakes and Arrows tour. I bought it on-line at around 11.45 on a Friday night from the band’s official website when I was pre-ordering the album.

When I received a note from the Post Office informing me I had to pay duty on the items awaiting collection at the depot around a fortnight later, it taught me a valuable lesson. Don’t buy off the internet late at night after five or six bottles of Old Speckled Hen.

Anyway, I did wear it for the Rush gig at the Newcastle Arena and while I’ll admit I don’t look as svelte as Matt, I like to think I didn’t look quite as ridiculous as some I saw that night.

Since then, however, I’ve worn the T-shirt at the gym on numerous occasions so it’s now probably more washed out than some of the Free and Bad Company tops I spotted at Bad Company’s April gig on Tyneside.

For gigs, I’ll wear exactly the same clothes as I would for going to the pub or indeed, for work since home is my office.

To be honest, I’ve never really been one for official merchandise. Indeed, in over 30 years of attending gigs, I can count on one hand the number of concert shirts I’ve bought – two UFO ones, 20-odd years apart, a garish red Sammy Hagar vest and another from the first-ever Monsters Of Rock festival at Castle Donington in 1980.

But I am in a minority because from what I’ve witnessed over the years, a significant proportion of rock fans like to buy that tour’s T-shirt as a memento, to be worn with pride wherever.

Some T-shirts have taken on iconic status. My son James, for instance, has the famous Led Zeppelin 1977 tour top and ubiquitous Motorhead top which look as cool today as they ever have an dif there was size small enough for him, my ten-year-old son Michael would happily wear Guns n’ Roses Appetite For Destruction shirt 24/7.

My middle son Will prefers wearing football tops though not necessarily to demonstrate any tribal loyalty. Wearing the latest Barcelona or AC Milan shirt look good, anytime, any place anywhere. Brandishing your own club colours away from the matchday environment isn’t particularly cool.

Personally, I will stick to my polo-shirts this summer unless of course, anyone know where I can buy an ABE top.

And for those of you who’ve worked that one out, my tongue’s firmly in cheek!

Ian Murtagh

June 4, 2010

The countdown has officially begun and across the country, thousands of fans will be waiting for the big launch next Friday.

And no, I’m not talking about the World Cup but the Download gig at Donington, which marks the start of festival season.

Unfortunately, I won’t be there myself but for those who are present on the opening night, I think they are in for a treat with AC/DC headlining the event for a record-breaking fourth time, supportered by Them Crooked Vultures and Wolfmother, who have released two of the strongest rock albums of the past 12 months.

Of course, the event clashes with World Cup 2010 kicking off in South Africa which, I can guarantee, will get about a million times more column inches in the papers.

Now much as I love football, I appreciate there are many people in the country who will be driven mad by the coverage and the hype we can expect over the next six weeks.

No doubt we will hear about record-breaking TV audiences of 20milliion plus watching Rooney, Lampard and Gerrard go out at the quarter final stage on penalties.

But let’s not forget that means there are another 30 million who aren’t watching the footy including, quite probably, a large proportion of fans heading for Donington who are blissfully unaware they will be missing England’s World Cup opener against USA.

Not being an England fan, I will enjoy the World Cup with a detached outlook, pretending not to be bitter that Thierry Henry committed arguably the most blatant act of cheating in sporting history to deny Ireland – and me – our ticket to South Africa.

The jingoism, cross of St George-mania and blind optimism which sweeps over Inger-land every two years, is a real turn-off for me.

But I am turned on by watching good football, particularly from some of the world’s emerging teams such as Ivory Coast, Ghana and Nigeria.

I’m intrigued to see Brazil’s latest model, wonder if Argentina’s multi-talented side will thrive in spite of Diego Maradona and Jonas Gutierrez and I’m looking forward to seeing my tips for the top, Holland prove me utterly and hopelessly wrong.

In the past, I’ve talked about many clubs in this country beam rock music on their tannoys on matchdays to buttress an atmosphere. Newcastle for instance, used to play AC/DC’s Thunderstruck and Middlesbrough often played The Who’s Won’t Get Fooled Again.

But there are times when rock music and football definitely don’t mix.

I particularly hate it when a band tries to exploit a local side’s success and somehow use it as a concert accessory.

Airbourne, for example, went totally over the top (for a change!!) in telling the audience at Newcastle’s Carling Academy a couple of months ago how great the football team was.

The fact the Aussie band (who probably know about as much about soccer as they do about subtlety) could be forgiven the odd references just to earn an extra cheer or two but for Joey O’Keefe to cavort with a Toon Army flag and mentioned Newcastle United almost after every song, was too much.

It doesn’t work for three reasons. One it’s crass, two a significant proportion of fans at local gigs are Sunderland fans or support another team and three, many rock fans aren’t particularly interested in football.

Mark Knopfler, a genuine Magpies fan, was wonderfully understated in demonstrating his support with just one, almost shy comment about the team he supports at his recent Arena gig.

Unfortunately, one neanderthal fan tried to ruin his rendition of Local Hero with a couple of earthy blasts of `Sheeeeeearer’ which went down like a lead balloon.

In my compartmentalised life, football and rock music are two great passions but I like them separate, detached and exclusive, not shoved down my throat.

Ian Murtagh

May 28, 2010

It wasn’t exactly the highlight of the night but, for this particular punter, the words sounded almost as sweet as the music we were about to hear.

Five minutes before Mark Knopfler was due on stage at Newcastle’s Metro Arena last Saturday, one of his roadies nervously shuffled on stage to make an announcement.

“Ladies and Gentleman,” he said. “Mark and his band would appreciate it if members of the audience would refrain from using their mobile phones to film the concert as they find it very distracting.”

Instinctively, I applauded as did my mate Paul but around us, there were mutterings of discontent as iPhones, Blackberries and other devices were reluctantly shoved back into pockets.

Within a hour, temptation had got the better of the guy to my left and, ignoring my frowns of disapproval, he decided to record a surreptitious blast of Knopfler footage during Sultans Of Swing.

Having got away with that and obviously deciding to ignore my impotent glare, he grew in confidence and by the time Knopfler and his band were encoring, he was brazenly filming entire songs.

Now before anyone accuses me of hypocrisy, I won’t pretend I’ve never gone on to You Tube to watch clips of concerts.

And I’ll probably continue to do so, either to preview a gig I’m attending to find out what’s in store or afterwards, to recapture an enjoyable night’s entertainment.

Certainly I am not advocating a return to those dark days in the late 70s and early 80s when anyone taking a quick photograph risked ejection and having their cameras smashed by some meathead bouncer.

But the proliferation of concert-goers fancying themselves as mini-cameramen has reached such a level that something needs to be done.

As someone who stands six foot plus, sightlines are rarely a problem at concerts when I’m standing up. Indeed, I’m more concerned about blocking other people’s view than not having a decent line of vision myself.

However, I’d rather not have a dozen or so taut arms raised with mobiles in hand for minutes at a time and I’m sure countless concert-goer share my views.

If we’re distracted, then think how band members feel and certainly in the case of Knopfler, for all his dexterity, it can’t be easy playing a complicated piece of music with the air heaving with anonymous black rectangular gadgets.

And let’s face it, most You Tube clips are of a standard which makes a Buster Keaton movie look of HD  quality.

I suppose I’ve got a grudging respect for those who can keep their arms sufificently still to pull off a decent recording but they are far outweighed by footage with pathetic sound quality, grainy images and film which looks as if it has been taken on a rollercoaster.

Unfortunately, Knopfler didn’t stop playing halfway through Brothers In Arms to chastise the miscreant alongside who decided that pre-gig message was not meant for him.

Perhaps that’s what is needed to prevent people flagrantly breaking the rules!

Without advocating a draconian code of conduct, my advice is simple. If you must record at a gig, have consideration for your fellow concert goers.

And if an artist specifically asks you not to record, DON’T DO IT.

Ian Murtagh

May 21, 2010

Just imagine for a moment Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones had persisted with their attempts to re-form Led Zeppelin without Robert Plant as the band’s vocalist.

Like thousands of Zeppelin fans, you’re horror-struck, aghast and angry that the pair had dared to reform the band without the defining sound of Percy.

You buy the new album, not out of anticipation but out of a sense of loyalty to the name yet your emotions are running riot.

Of course, you’re curious to listen to the first new Zep material for three decades and part of you wants to enjoy it – after all, for as long as you can remember Page has been one of your musical heroes.

But then there’s that other part of you which wants to hate the record you’ve just bought. Whether it’s Josh Homme, Myles Kennedy or whoever fronting the band, the point is it’s NOT Robert Plant so that means it’s not Led Zeppelin. End of.

Five minutes later and you grudgingly accept that having listened to track one, you quite like it, track two is even better. After playing the album in its entirety, you acknowledge its quality.

Led Zeppelin never did reincarnate but 30 years ago, Black Sabbath took on a new, exciting life-form.

And to understand the true greatness of Ronnie James Dio, you probably have to go back to 1980 and the release of Heaven And Hell, Sabbath’s first release since they sacked the drug-riddled Ozzy Osbourne.

Sabbath fans wanted to hate it, they wrote off Dio before hearing a note and proclaimed to anyone within earshot that the band had effectively died the day their charismatic frontman left it.

Yet today even Ozzy die-hards would accept that Heaven And Hell is right up there with the best Sabbath albums of the 70s.

As someone who preferred Rainbow to Ozzy’s Sabbath, I loved Heaven and Hell in the same way that I’d embraced albums such as Rising and Long Live Rock n’ Roll.

Ironically, 12 months earlier, Rainbow fans had been in mourning themselves when Richie Blackmore ruthlessly sacked Dio, replacing him with the Hawaian-shirted Graham Bonnett in a bid to make his band more commercial.

And in truth, the subsequent album Down To Earth was more successful than its predecessors and those of us who’d  loved Dio’s wizards and sorcerer-inpired lyrics soon warmed to the music of Bonnet and later his own successor Joe Lynn Turner.

But today ask Rainbow fans to mention their favourite albums and it’s a stonewall certainty Rising would top the poll, closely followed by Long Live Rock n’ Roll and probably Richie Blackmore’s Rainbow.

By 1983, Dio had left his indelible mark on two of the biggest rock bands on the planet yet within a year, he’d released a solo album which became as famous and as revered as Rising and Heaven and Hell.

Holy Diver was the American’s finest solo release and his most successful. There were subsequent releases such as Last In Line which ensured Dio remained one of rock’s biggest names during the 80s, unlike the two bands he’d left which both suffered marked declines.

Ronnie James Dio will go down in rock music history as of the genre’s finest vocalists and having seen him live twice in recent years – once with his solo band at Newcastle University and once with Heaven And Hell – I can testify to the durability of those vocal chords.

But surely his finest achievement was to play a key role in three of the finest rock albums ever released.

To sing on one truly great album marks one out as special, to sing on three is the stuff of legends.

To sing on three great albums for three different bands makes you immortal.

Rest In Peace Ronnie.

Ian Murtagh

May 14, 2010

Now that the country’s gone coalition-crazy (for now!), I decided it’s about time to enter into the spirit of pluralism and do a spot of cherry-picking myself.

Remember those days as kids when we’d all sit around, arguing until we were blue in the face, who was the greatest guitarist, the best bassist, the finest frontman and the most sizzling sticksman on the planet.

We never could reach agreement, could we?

Well if two diametrically-opposed political parties think they can work together for the next five years (any takers?), then Self Made Man can resolve a few arguments of his own.

By putting together my very own supergroup.

And frighteningly, or perhaps encouragingly, I find myself mulling over exactly the same contenders as I would have 30 years ago, given or take one or two usurpers.

Guitarist: Would it be Jimmy Page, David Gilmour, Richie Blackmore or Michael Schenker? I voted for all three in Sounds’ famous readers polls over the years.

If it’s about style, then Joe Perry comes into it or for a particularly distinct sound, Neil Young can’t be crossed off any list.

And let’s not dismiss the younger generation with Joe Bonamassa as technically accomplished as any of his illustrious predecessors.

The winner is……David Gilmour, who edges out Jimmy Page by virtue of the fact, he is still musically active, having proved in his more recent live shows that he’s as good now as he was during his Pink Floyd heyday.

Vocalist: Robert Plant, Paul Rodgers, Steve Tyler and David Coverdale were always my favourites as a teenager closely followed by Ronnie James Dio, Ian Gillan, Klaus Meine and the much underrated Phil Mogg.

Incredibly, the magnificent seven have been as prominent over the past decade as they were during the previous three.

Having seen them all live since 2005, I would argue that while Coverdale’s voice has markedly declined and Plant has had to adapt his significantly – as have Gillan, Mogg and to a less extent, Dio, Rodgers sounds as good today as he did during his time with Free.

So the voice of rock Paul Rodgers gets my vote in the singing session.

Bassist: Sadly, the finest purveyor of this trade passed away several years ago so the imperious John Entwistle cannot be considered. For showmanship, Pete Way would undoubtedly be on the short-list while in contrast, if undemonstrative excellence is the criteria, AC/DC’s rock-steady Cliff Willliams is right up there.

Technically, there are few finer bassists than Geddy Lee while I’m also a fan of U2′s Adam Clayton and Mike Mills of REM. But for sheer all-round brilliance, John Paul Jones is the outright winner, having proved with his work with Them Crooked Vultures that he remains as good today as he did during his Led Zeppelin heyday.

Drummer: As with the late John Entwistle, two obvious candidates in the peerless John Bonham and Cozy Powell are no longer with us and are therefore ineligible.

I can make a strong case for Deep Purple’s Ian Paice, who, so people who know these sort of things, tell me he is very much the drummer’s drummer.

Also Fleetwood Mac’s Mick Fleetwood remains one of the most distinctive and versatile percussionists still around while I can vouch for Simon Kirke’s consistency having recently seen Bad Company.

But surely the only winner is this category is Neil Peart, Rush’s sticksman supreme and probably the only one around for whom his drum solo remains essential viewing.

So there it is, Self Made Man’s very own coalition-busting supergroup – Paul Rodgers, David Gilmour, John Paul Jones and Neil Peart.

Now doesn’t that beat Cameron, Clegg, Cable and Osborne?!

Ian Murtagh

May 7, 2010

Whatever you voted in the General Election, I don’t expect your political views bear any relation whatsoever to your musical tastes.

At least I hope not.

For like oil and water, politics and music should be kept completely separate.

But 30 years ago, that wasn’t always the case. Indeed, it can be argued that punk rock was born out of adolescent disillusionment with society.

The Clash were unashamedly political with their lyrics espousing numerous left wing causes while the Sex Pistols preached Anarchy In The UK.

In the early 80s, with Maggie Thatcher’s policies leading to levels of unemployment not seen since the 1930s, UB40 wrote mockingly about the self-styled Iron Lady’s declaration that ‘only’ one in 10 did not have a job.

Of course, in the North East, Thatcherism’s consequences were at their most damaging with towns like Consett suffering way out of proportion to the rest of the country with the closure of its Steel Works and while The Specials didn’t specifically write about its sad demise, the lyrics to Ghost Town could have been about the Consett.

Billy Bragg honed his career on political comment and to this day still sings about nuclear disarmament and social issues.

Music and politics continued to cross over when Tony Blair became PM with his much-publicised meeting with Noel and Liam Gallagher at 10 Downing Street proving the high point of Cool Britannia.

Thankfully, there has been little association between the two during this election campaign though I was amused to read that the Labour party wanted to use The Jam’s Eton Rifles, referring to David Cameron’s education background.

They approached Paul Weller and Bruce Foxton for permission but decided against following through with the idea on hearing that both had children at public school with the latter sending his son to …..Eton.

With notable exceptions such as Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young, rock music has tended to stay clear of political comment, preferring to wax lyrical about wine, women and song to plagiarise David Coverdale for one moment.

And that’s how I prefer it. I listen to music, to relax, to switch off, to get pumped up, to unwind, to create an atmosphere, to escape, in fact to do anything except think to much about the world we live in.

AC/DC’s Angus Young recalls a time in the mid-70s when the Aussie hard rockers were placed on the same bill as The Clash and, for a time, attracted the same audience.

But where they differed was that while Joe Strummer preached a political message, Bon Scott just wanted to talk about his latest sexual conquests.

“For them it was politics,” said Young. “We were into Chuck Berry and he sang about cars, women and party time. That, for us, was rock n’ roll. The Clash were locked into selling this anarchy, like a political thing and to be honest with your, the first time I heard the word anarchy, I had to get a dictionary to look up the f**ker! That ain’t communicating to me and it certainly ain’t rock n’ roll.”

Hear, hear. AC/DC certainly get my vote!

Ian Murtagh

April 30, 2010

I can still vividly recall my family’s reaction to Boy George’s first-ever appearance on Top Of The Pops, singing the Culture Club hit Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?.

Is it a man dressed up as a woman? A woman pretending to be a man?

Well actually, we were all wrong for Boy George was a man dressing up as er…….man. Sort of.

The early-80s were a period in music’s kaleidoscopic history when appearances proved hugely deceptive.

Of course, to an adolescent `rocker,’ like me, Boy George was just `a pouf’ and so was every follower of the New Romantic movement who wore eye liner and lip gloss and outfits almost as outrageous as the Culture Club frontman.

I also took an instant dislike to The Smiths when Morrissey made his TV debut, cavorting with a bunch of gladioli and acting like a prat which to this day has made it very hard for me to appreciate his music.

Of course, while it soon became obvious that Boy George was gay, I had to modify my verdict on many of his contemporaries.

I’d become quite accustomed to going out with girlfriends who fancied Robert Plant and David Coverdale and once had a blazing row with one I accused of spending the entire two hours of a Whitesnake gig staring at DC’s loins.

But a few years later, girlfriends were telling me how gorgeous Spandau Ballet’s Martin Kemp was or that John Taylor of Duran Duran was god’s gift to the female sex.

I became so accustomed to seeing posters of Simon Le Bon and even Adam Ant plastered across bedroom walls, it got me thinking.

Perhaps make-up, jewellery and fancy clothes were the way into….well you know what I mean.

Back then, how you looked announced your music tastes. You really were what you wore.

For those of us into rock music, T-shirts and jeans were the everyday uniform though it was the fact we grew our hair which marked us out more than our attire.

Often we’d be tagged `hippies’ though it was a lazy label fashioned solely on hair length rather than clothes, musical taste or indeed lifestyle philosophy.

Punks were easy to spot – they looked even scruffier than us, wore safety pins and threw lacquer on their hair to make it spiky.

The mods, I’ll concede, looked the part with their short back and sides, long parkas and, on special occasions, dark suits, slim-fit shirts and pencil-thin ties.

And then of course, there were the John Travoltas, who weren’t afraid to be seen out in their white slacks, unbuttoned their shirts to show off their latest medallion and wouldn’t be seen dead in training shoes, which were de rigueur for the rest of young mankind.

But it was the New Romantics who made fashion not so much a statement as a bold declaration of everything they believed in.

For all my teenage disapproval of their look, they had identity just as the rest of us did in our less flamboyant way.

Today, there is little to distinguish the modern-day adolescent rocker from the indie devotee or even the rapper.

Young lads all wear hoodies, invariabl, headwear and at times go out in the same sort of black plimsolls they used to wear for PE in their primary schools

But the most distinctive fashion statement of today is that they all have their trousers hanging halfway down their legs to show off their designer underwear.

Now I bet you wouldn’t have caught Boy George doing that 25 years ago!

Ian Murtagh

April 23, 2010

Had the world’s newcasters taken a leaf out of the book of England’s 1998 World Cup squad, they could have had some real fun with the story that’s dominated our channels for the past week.

Twelve years ago, in a rare outbreak of footballing frivolity, Alan Shearer, Gareth Southgate and company made a pact.

Whenever one of them was interviewed on television, they had to include as many Abba songs in their answers as they could.

And so Shearer told the BBC the World Cup was more about glory than Money, Money, Money, Sol Campbell famously warned that unless the England players were on top form, they were liable to meet their Waterloo.

Gareth Southgate, looking ahead to their fateful quarter-final meeting with Argentina, said that now the competition had reached the knockout stages, it was Winner Takes It All.

Not that I’m suggesting broadcasters turn themselves into a bunch of Dancing Queens with their Abba references.

But wouldn’t it be great if every news item relating to the volcanic ash hanging over Northern Europe was accompanied by some appropriate music.

And so the news could kick off with Eddie Van Halen’s ubiquitous Eruption, before it’s replaced by Genesis’  Dancing On A Volcano or even Afterglow as the cameras close in on the brave journalists reporting from Iceland.

Sound editors are best advised to have some Deep Purple available for special effects. Obviously Into The Fire would have to be aired but how about Stormbringer, Burn or even Smoke On The Water.

AC/DC can always be relied upon to provide social commentary on such Acts of God. Now I’m not saying Angus and Malcolm Young are the modern day equivalent of Nostradamus but listetening to the lyrics of Skies On Fire, Meltdown, Rising Power or Shake Your Foundations does make you wonder.

Of course, those whose lives have been affected by the Aviation crisis (and I include my own family since son No. 1 has twice been forced to cancel a university interview in Belfast) wouldn’t always take kindly to such disruptions been played out to a musical backdrop.

So perhaps television companies are best advised not to play Nazareth’s This Flight Tonight, the Sex Pistols’ Holiday In the Sun or even David Bowie’s Ashes To Ashes at this particular time.

But despite the inconveniences caused to so many travellers around Europe, I think we do have to applaud the airline companies for putting safety ahead of profit.

After all we wouldn’t want any sick jokes relating to Queen’s Another One Bites The Dust, would we?

Ian Murtagh

April 16, 2010

Rock will never die? Too right judging by the audience at last week’s Airbourne gig at the Newcastle Academy.

Ages ranged from nine or ten years-old to quite a few fans in their sixties.

If a bar chart was drawn up of all the decades, the teens and twenties would probably be competing with the forties and fifties with only the 30-somethings under-represented _ but more of that later.

It wasn’t the greatest concert I’ve been too, it wasn’t even the best I’d attended that week having seen Bad Company play a blinder the previous night.

But at least it proved that rock music remains as relevant to the next generation as it does to those of us who were around in the 1970s.

I do wonder, however, what attracts youngsters to Airbourne.

For those of us of a certain age, the obvious reason is that they’re the nearest thing to a new, hyped-up AC/DC. Anyone who enjoys riff-orientated songs can’t fail to be impressed by the Aussie band.

Personally – and I mentioned this when I reviewed an earlier gig of theirs – I find their live show too energised, if there is such a thing.

Joel O’Keeffe and the boys play at 100 mph hour from first crashing note to last with no respite in between.  There’s no time to breath and no light and shade in their music.

But perhaps this is what appeals to those younger than me. I’m sure one of the highlights of the gig for many was when O’Keefe went walkabout all the way to the balcony and back.

It was a throwback to the days when Angus Young did exactly that, often on the shoulders of Bon Scott and later Brian Johnson.

Gimmicks such as this are fine and often add to a gig but will those fans who watch Airbourne, specifically for such stunts, still be around in ten years’ time? I wonder.

I go to concerts primarily for the music, not to jump around in a mosh pit, to be soaked in beer (I prefer drinking the stuff!!) or to marvel at the athleticism of the frontman.

If O’Keeffe toned down his act, I would still watch Airbourne but would those who revelled in his antics? I suspect those fans are the ones not in it for the long-term.

Bad Company fans, in contrast, certainly are in it for the long-term as witnessed by the previous night’s sell-out at the Arena.

From an age point of view, I’m usually Mr Average when I attend gigs which can be labelled classic rock but even in my mid-40s, I was definitely on the young side here. In fact, most of the audience were probably teenagers when Paul Rodgers and Simon Kirke were still in Free.

I find it a pity that so few music fans under 40 were present to witness what I consider one of the finest vocal performances I’ve ever had the privilege of hearing from Rodgers.

Earlier I mentioned how few 30-somethings seem to attend the same concerts that I do. It can’t be an age thing because the 18 to 25s are there in force.

With the notable exception of Mr RushonRock himself, most of my mates between the ages of around 32 to 40 don’t listen to the same music as me. Even worse, they turn up their noses at my tastes.

For some reason The Smiths, The Stone Roses and Radiohead are cool but Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Rush aren’t.

I can’t understnd it because while I positively hate The Smiths, I enjoy listening to those other two band so loved by the 30 somethings.

I know of at least two people who in their youth, listened to Motley Crue,  Def Leppard, Whitesnake and their ilk only to now effectively distance themselves from their teenage years by claiming they’ve `grown out’ of such bands.

Hopefully, the youngsters who saw Airbourne the other night won’t feel the same way in a decade or two’s time.

Though if they enjoyed the gimmicks more than the music, they probably will.

Ian Murtagh

April 9, 2010

Desert Island Discs was a programme which always mystified me because I was always suspicious about the music choices of every guest.

They’re bringing back a highlights package of the programme devised by Roy Plomley and introduced by its founder for several decades before Sue Lawley and latterly Kirsty Young hosted the show.

Years ago, I recall listening to the show at my grandparents house – it used to be on after World At One – and back then, most of the selections would be classical, with the occasional big band clip or perhaps extracts from a musical.

In more recent times, there has been a smattering of pop, even rock as the castaways have got younger, perhaps trendier and of a new generation.

David Cameron, for example, wanted some Radiohead on his desert island while PM Gordon Brown opted for a Beatles track.

But of course, like everyone else on the show, they played it safe, with Mozart, Beethoven or Strauss dominating over Page, Clapton or Blackmore.

Now I don’t know about you, but if by some miracle I was ever asked to go on Desert Island Discs, all my selections would come from the rock genre.

I suspect quite a few guests have felt the same way but decided it wouldn’t be politically correct to limit their choice to rock music. Or perhaps it’s a case of producers telling them their selections had to come from various categories.

At night, if I’m struggling to get off to sleep, rather than counting sheep, I often thinking of the songs or albums I’d pick.

Of course, this can change day by day, week by week, month by month but in general, there would always something from Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, UFO, Rush and Neil Young.

Just for fun, here’s the albums I’ve picked to listen to on my desert island:

Pink Floyd: Wish You Were Here – for the simple reason it includes Shine On You Crazy Diamond, my favourite-ever song.

Led Zeppelin: Physical Graffiti – it’s a double album so that gives it the edge over Zeppelin II and IV.

UFO: Strangers In The Night – the greatest live album in the history of rock music.

Neil Young: On The Beach – moody, intense, melancholy and magnificent.

Rush: Hemispheres – Just four tracks on the album but all of them scorchers.

AC/DC: Back In Black – Ok, it’s a predictable choice but you couldn’t have a top ten list without it.

REM: Automatic for People – Breathtaking melody, songwriting at its finest

Derek And The Dominoes:  Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs – Eric Clapton’s career high

Bad Company: Hard Rock Live – The recent live release and Wednesday’s breathtaking gig prove beyond all doubt Paul Rodgers has the best voice in rock

Fleetwood Mac: Rumours – Must have played it a thousand times and never tire of hearing it.

Oh and by the way my book would be Wisden: The History of Test Cricket and my luxury would be an endless supply of blackburrant yoghurt!!

Ian Murtagh

April 2, 2010

Youngest son Michael received a bass guitar for his tenth birthday which apparently means he’s a certainty to be in a band by the time he reaches adulthood.

Or at least that’s what one of my mates tells me. You see, the rock world is crying out for bassists apparently.

Lead guitarists are two a penny, so the story goes. Vocalists are in plentiful supply and there’s even a surfeit of drummers.

Now that surprises me considering parents across the land tend to suffer panic attacks at the very mention of drum kits cluttering up the home.

And let’s face it, every budding band tends to practice at the drummer’s house simply because it’s easier to transport mics, guitars and amps than bass drums, snares and tom-toms.

But Spinal Tap’s infamous piss-take of drummers seemingly didn’t kill off the breed but bassists? Demand supposedly exceeds supply these days.

Bassists are  the centre halves of rock as opposed to the goalscoring instincts of the guitarist who wants to grab all the glory.

Michael’s probably not quite old enough to appreciate the subtleties of such a theory and certainly his personality doesn’t suggest he wants a role in the background.

Indeed, he just wants to be the new Duff McKagan.

I’m quite happy he has chosen the bass guitar as his instrument of choice (along with the viola, which he has been learning for three years at school).

A pal of mine Paul K, who plays bass for The Honest Johns, (one of Tyneside’s best bands incidentally) has promised to teach Michael.

He only started playing a few years ago but says that in hindsight whenever he was listening to music, he had an ear for the bass line, citing musicians such as Free’s Andy Fraser and John Entwistle as big influences.

If anyone questions the important of the bassist, they should check out John Paul Jones’ playing on Them Crooked Vultures stunning debut album.

Now I appreciate that like Fraser and Entwistle, fhe former Led Zeppelin bassist is among the very finest at his art but listening to Them Crooked Vultures it could be argued that the music sounds more like his former band than The Foo Fighters or even Queens’ Of The Stone Age, despite Josh Homme being the vocalist.

Bassists aren’t just the glue that bonds a band, they drive the music and often are the defining instrument.

Think Geddy Lee in Rush. Phil Lynott of Thin Lizzy or even Bruce Foxton of The Jam _ three bands very much bass-orientated.

And if The Chain isn’t Fleetwood Mac’s most famous song, John McVie’s piece de resistance at the end of it has arguably the most famous bass solo in music history, thanks to BBC’s coverage of Formula One.

Blimey, I’m getting carried away with myself and my aspirations for No. 3 son!  Let’s just say if Michael does flourish and joins a band, I’ll be the proudest Dad in the world.

Ian Murtagh

March 26, 2010

They were more folk than rock, their amps never hit 11 and they wrote about scarecrows, misty rivers and the environment.

Yet for most music fans of a certain age living in the North East, Lindisfarne formed an indelible part of their youth.

Indeed, I’d hazard a guess than anyone who ever attended one of their famous Christmas concerts at Newcastle City Hall in the late 70s and early 80s would still count the event as one of the most memorable, passionate and enjoyable they’ve ever been to.

Mind you, I’ve been told by seasoned festival goers that in the seventies, Lindisfarne, who had a couple of No. 1 albums behind them, often stole the show at major events such as Knebworth, Reading or the Isle of Wight with their ability to connect with a mass audience and encourage crowd participation.

Lindisfarne used to block book the City Hall for the entire festive period and while I can’t find any documentary evidence of the fact, created a record that will never be broken by selling out the venue so many nights in a row.

While it was relatively easy to obtain tickets for some shows,  to be there on Christmas Eve, or those nights between Boxing Day and New Year’s Eve,  invariably meant queuing for hours on end to guarantee entry.

Lindisfarne were a North East institution and to be present at one of those gigs was indeed to experience Magic In The Air, which was the title of their 1979 live album recorded at their spiritual home.

I can still recall my first-ever Lindisfarne concert and my surprise at the reaction of the audience when the concert started.

For at most gigs I attended, I became accustomed to fans trying to rush to the front of the stage – bouncers permitting – or at least getting off their bums to watch the entire show standing up.

Not so a Lindisfarne concert for while the roar which greeted their entry on stage was as loud as any, fans would watch the first half an hour or so, sitting down almost in reverence.

But those who tell you they’ve never quite experienced an atmosphere like a Lindisfarne one aren’t exaggerating. The nights were slow burners which eventually turned into raucous Geordie shindigs.

I recently read an old article which compared their chief songwriter Alan Hull, who tragically died in 1995, as England’s answer to Bob Dylan. It was quite a compliment but anyone who’s listened to the haunting Lady Eleanor, the eco-warrior driven All Fall Down or the bewitching Winter’s Tale will testify to his talent.

Lindisfarne’s most famous song, of course, is Fog On The Tyne and while there is absolutely nothing wrong with this catchy ditty, I think it’s a pity that for many music fans under 35, they associate the band with this song and their 1990 collaboration with Gazza.

Of course, Fog On The Tyne was one of the highlights of a Lindisfarne Show, which normally kicked into party mode with a hearty rendition of Meet Me On The Corner. From this point on, the gig would become one collective singalong.

Clear White Light, We Can Swing Together and Run For Home would usually close every concert by which time the audience would have sung themselves as hoarse as Alan, Ray Jackson, Si Cowe, Rod Clements and drummer Ray Laidlaw, who, incidentally, went to the same school as Sting, Neil Tennent, Dec Donnelly ……and er me.

Their last-ever gig was at the Journal Theatre in Newcastle several years ago but Lindisfarne without Hull were a pale imitation of their former selves, a bit like think Lizzy without Phil Lynott.

So what’s inspired me to write about about Lindisfarne this week? The answer might just persuade a few of you who haven’t heard much by them to sample a few of their tracks.

I was in a pub frequented by a lot of students over the weekend when All Fall Down and Clear White Light came onto the jukebox in quick succession prompting a group of young drinkers to first, ask who was signing before eulogising about the quality.

Music to their ears and music to mine.

Ian Murtagh

March 19, 2010

A few years ago, a journalistic colleague approached me and said, with a sarcastic grin on his face: “I want to give you this.”

In his hand was a copy of Status Quo’s recently released album The Party Ain’t Over Yet, which I took with grateful thanks.

Three days later, I told him that I’d listened to it two or three times, quite liked it and written a review for his newspaper.

“A review?” he replied with amusement. “We’re not carrying a review of Status bloody Quo. The CD would only have ended up in the bin if I hadn’t remembered you had such c**p taste in music.”

I like to think that last bit was said in jest though the implication of his message was crystal clear. This guy hated rock music and to him, Status Quo were the biggest jokers of the lot.

Now I’m not Quo’s biggest fan. Indeed, I probably wouldn’t include them in my top 30 favourite bands.

I’ve got a couple of their 1970s releases on vinyl and as well as now owning TPAOY, I bought the XS All Areas double album when it came out in 2005 which includes all the hits from their distinguished career stretching back four decades.

Even then, I would admit that much of their later material, by which I mean their post 1982 output, is not really my cup of tea.

But boy does it annoy me when music snobs take the piss out of them.

Not that I feel the need to defend them nor do I sense Francis Rossi or Rick Parfitt are particularly bothered by the flak that routinely comes their way.

In fact, the dynamic duo are quite adept at turning the tables on their critics by taking the piss out of themselves, hence the titles of recent albums Famous In The Last Century and particularly In Search Of The Fourth Chord.

It’s no wonder Quo are feeling so smug because they wrote four or five songs which will still be played when their arty-farty detractors are pushing up daisies.

I know plenty of people who are definitely not Quo fans but the moment they listen to the first bars of Caroline, Rockin’ All Over The World, Again And Again or Whatever You Want, their feet start tapping and a smile comes over them.

Quo music is fun music and while they are a very different band today to in their heyday when drummer John Coughlan and bassist Alan Lancaster completed the four-piece,  their own brand of twelve bar blues continues to get people up on dancefloors the world over.

To this day, one of my mates Paul will tell you watching Quo live in the 70s was one of the best experiences of his musical life and their album Quo Live captures the electricity and chemistry of the band in this period.

I’ve only seen them once – about six years ago at the Newcastle Arena – and the sound is a lot less raucous and considerably poppier than it once was.

A Quo audience too has changed with ages ranging from seven to 70 and a lot more females than there might have been in their prime.

Some of them probably enjoy the middle-of-the road songs like Marguerita Time, In The Army Now or Burning Bridges – the type of music which convinced Lancaster to quit the band all those years ago.

But it was the collective response to Caroline, Whatever You Want and Rockin’ All Over The World which, not surprisingly, brought the loudest applause and it is those songs which mean that me and millions like me will never be ashamed to say `I like Status Quo’.

Ian Murtagh

March 12, 2010

Sue and I are celebrating 20 years of wedded bliss this week and it’s fair to say we will not be marking the anniversary with a reprise of the song which almost cost me my marriage within hours of the pair of us taking our vows.

It’s not the proudest moment of my life, I’ll admit but honestly Sue, it was done with the best, most romantic intentions.

We’d planned the wedding down to a T with myself in charge of the post-banquet disco. That meant nominating a song for us to dance to, as is tradition on such occasions.

Accepting it had to be something appropriate, I chose Michael Ball’s Love Changes Everything because well, er… love had actually changed everything.

My dear wife was unimpressed and spent the entire song, pretending to throw up on the dance floor in front of family and friends as if to say she wouldn’t have touched me with a barge pole if she’d realised she was marrying someone quite so soppy.

It was left to our dear friend Debbie, in her inebriated state, to ensure the night wasn’t a complete `Ball’s-up’ by getting everyone on to the floor for Sweet’s Wig-Wam Bam and Bryan Adams’ Summer of 69.

As if further evidence is required to demonstrate the fact that 1990 was not my greatest musical year, we launched our married life with a CD collection of precisely zero.

As I’ve revealed before, I was in a music wilderness for almost a decade, five years before marrying and five years after.

Your 20s should be a period in life when you indulge in your very own rock n’ roll fantasy, heading off to festivals every summer, regularly attending gigs and bolstering your album collection.

But in the early years of marriage, we didn’t own a CD player, my cassette collection had been stolen from my car and the vast majority of vinyl records we brought with us from our former homes were at least five years old.

I could blame the thief who deprived me of 40 or 50 tapes as being the prime cause of my disillusionment with music because with a new house to pay for, mortgage rates sky high and kids on the way, I simply could not afford to replace them nor buy new stuff.

But in truth my interest in rock had started to wane before that heinous crime with many of my favourite bands releasing some of their worst albums at that time.

After the highs of Back In Black and For Those About To Rock, the quality of AC/DC’s output deteriorated markedly, evidenced by the disappointing Fly On The Wall and Flick Of A Switch.

After Signals, I went off Rush too as a band which had released epics such as Permanent Waves and Moving Pictures became obsessed with the synthesiser.

Rainbow had vanished, UFO self-imploded and Deep Purple’s reunion had spluttered after Perfect Strangers.

And while I was aware of Whitesnake’s multi-million seller 1987, to me David Coverdale in his hair-metal days was an alien creature to the classy blues rock performer of a few years earlier.

Those were my views at the time and 20 years on, I am less entrenched, having rediscovered Rush and caught up with the back catalogues of many bands I’d placed in cold storage.

I still recall the three albums I bought on the day we invested in our first CD music system – Oasis’ Morning Glory, On Every Street by Dire Straits and Meatloaf’s Welcome To the Neighbourhood.

Since then, my CD collection has grown from three to 873 with not a Michael Ball album in sight.

And not only has my love affair with rock been dramatically rekindled, I’ve even heard Sue singing along to UFO’s Doctor Doctor and wiggling her hips to The Other Side by Aerosmith.

Here’s to the next 20 years. Love may change everything but music really is the food of love.

Ian Murtagh

March 5, 2010

Montrose, Rose Tattoo, Gamma, Billy Squire, April Wine, Krokus and Cheetah.

Spot the connection? Thought not – which is hardly surprising because there isn’t one really, except for the fact that I have one record by each of them.

Last week’s blog was all about by album-buying days of the early eighties, when invariably I would buy the most recenty-released LPs by my favourite bands.

But just occasionally, I would try something a little bit different, hence that list of artists above.

Each and every one of them carries its own small story. Billy Squire, for example, impressed me so much as support act to Whitesnake that within days I went out and bought his album.

Montrose and Gamma are interlinked in that Ronnie Montrose was in both bands. I remember getting into Sammy Hagar without realising he had initially found fame as the lead singer in Montrose’s self-titled band.

Having bought Hagar’s live album Live And Clear and discovering most of the tracks on it had come from the Montrose’s debut release convinced me to buy the latter, which to this day remains one of my favoourites.

Montrose’s subsequent band Gamma did not enjoy the same success as Hagar despite releasing three very enjoyable albums. I recall buying his second at a Students Union record fair for a quid and must have borrowed the other two at some stage because in 1982, I went to see Gamma in concert at the Newcastle City Hall.

April Wine were a band introduced to me by two of my best mates who had cousins in Canada. They returned from a holiday their with a Greatest Hits package which included one of the catchiest songs I’d ever heard called Oowatanite.

They had a new album due out which all of us bought. Called Harder, Faster, it was reminiscent of Boston’s first two albums – a comparison I remember Tommy Vance making on his legendary Friday Night Rock Show, saying one of its tracks Before The Dawn was AW’s answer to More Than A Feeling.

April Wine became sufficiently well known this side of the pond to sell out the City Hall once – a gig I remember for big bald drummer Jerry Mercer’s quite incredible drum solo.

Rose Tattoo and Krokus also packed out Newcastle’s rock venues in the early 80s.

The former, an Aussie band who had supported AC/DC on tour, had a very distinctive sound with slide-guitar featuring heavily and were very much a cross between rock and punk.

Years later, vocalist Angry Anderson  had a Top 10 hit signing the soppy song which featured in the soap Neighbours when Kylie and Jason walked up the aisle but I doubt anyone every accused him of selling out. Take a look at pics of him and you’ll know why.

I prefer listening to Rock n’ Roll Outlaw, which I liked so much, I bought on CD many years later along with its follow-up Assault And Battery.

Krokus were very definitely metal and unashamedly AC/DC clones. Hailing from Switzerland, they were one of the cheesiest bands around, with spandex trousers, corny lyrics and some of the most ridiculous HM poses ever struck on stage.

And if you didn’t take them too seriously, they were magnificent. Mike, Paul and I met them backstage (the drummer was called Freddy Steady and the vocalist was Marc Storace) and they were approachable, friendly and generous, giving us autographed posters and telling us to get back in touch next time they were in town (we didn’t)

Amazingly, Krokus’ album, the cliche-ridden Metal Rendezvous, with the front cover showing two cars crashing into each other, sold by the bucketload, notably on the back of openers Heatstrokes and Bedside Radio and for a time, it looked as if they would be the next big thing.

Though they remained hugely successful on the Continent and also in parts of the United States, in this country they faded as quickly as they arrived though for anyone who likes no-holds-barred metal, I’d highly recommend Metal Rendezvous.

And finally we come to Cheetah, a band featuring two Aussie sisters called Chrissie and Lyndsay Hammond, one blond, one brunette, both very attractive.

I bought their album on the back of a TV appearance on the long-forgotten Saturday night show, hosted by Bernard Falk called the Seven Deadly Sins – yes, you’ve guessed it, they were guests on the show all about lust!

If the purpose of that TV gig was to promote their debut album Rock And Roll Women it certainly worked on this lust-fuelled adolescent who bought it a few days later

I doubt if that record is even available on CD in this country though there were some great tunes on it including the title track, the brazen Spend The Night and the raunchy Bang Bang (and no, it didn’t follow Spend The Night!!)

The other day, I Googled Cheetah and after surfing through a series of wildlife sites, found out that one of the sisters Lyndsay settled in London and gained quite a reputation in the West End as the leading lady in musicals such as Chicago and Cats.

Apparently, the sisters got together again as Cheetah three years ago and toured Down Under to rave reviews and are considering returning to these shores.

If any promoter is reading this, maybe he could arrange a tour featuring Krokus, Gamma, Rose Tattoo and April Wine too. I know of at least one punter who’d buy a ticket!

Ian Murtagh

February 26, 2010

Back in the days of student grants, signing on the dole during summer vacation, pints for a quid and £3.49 vinyl records, my music collection grew significantly.

Classic Rock magazine recently did a feature asking its readers `was 1980 the greatest year for rock music?’ and it must be said the output during those 12 months was both prolific and oozed quality.

Dusting down by vinyl collection, I probably bought the vast majority of my albums between 1980 and 1982, most of which were new releases by my favourite bands at the time.

And many fans would argue that bands such as AC/DC (with Back in Black), Rush (Permanent Waves and Moving Pictures), The Scorpions (Animal Magnetism and Blackout) and Whitesnake (Ready n’ Willing and Come and Get It) wrote their best music in this period.

The turn of the decade was also a period of great, even traumatic change. It’s exactly 30 years since Bon Scott died and recalling that grim day as a sixth former, wondering what would happen to AC/DC, few would have predicted the Aussie rockers would go on to greater, perhaps even better deeds.

They weren’t the only band to suffer tragedy in 1980 with Led Zeppelin calling it quits following drummer John Bonham’s sudden death though it has to be said, the great band’s recently released In Through The Outdoor had received such mixed reviews that some critics were claiming they were a spent force by that time.

When Black Sabbath replaced Ozzy Osbourne with Ronnie James Dio, few thought the band would survive yet the stunning Heaven And Hell has gone down as one of the greatest metal albums of all time.

Similarly, while Rainbow fans mourned Richie Blackmore’s decision to sack Dio, it has to be remembered that the band experienced one of its greatest moments when it headlined the first-ever Monsters of Rock at Donington that summer with the short-haired, Hawaian-shirted Graham Bonnet on vocals.

And two tracks from the hugely successful Down To Earth – Since You’ve Been Gone and All Night Long broke into the Top 10.

Even UFO’s acrimonous divorce with the errant Michael Schenker did not spell the end of the band’s success. His replacement Paul Chapman was a vital component in the band’s re-emergence with albums No Place To Run and The Wild, The Willing and the Innocence outselling all of their predecessors in this country at least.

The year 1980 is today revered as the period which gave birth to the New Wave of British Heavy Metal with band such as Def Leppard, Iron Maiden and Saxon coming to the fore.

But for most of my mates and I, it will always go down as the time that groups which were already well established, produced some of their greatest musical output.

Indeed, I’d hazard a guess that if ever a poll was done of rock fans’ top ten favourite albums, a high percentage would be from the years 1980 to 1982.

Ian Murtagh

February 19, 2010

After approximately 6,682 days, I’m finally going to see Nazareth in concert. Not that it will make up for catching the flu back in 1975.

You see, the Scottish rockers from Dunfermline were meant in to be the first band I ever saw live, which would have been appropriate because their album Razamanaz was the first album I ever bought.

I had it in cassette form because we didn’t have a record player – that would come a few months later – and very soon, my collection of music to listen to on my tape machine multiplied. Alongside Nazareth were albums by er…The Wombles and Alvin Stardust. Such are the nuances of a 12-year-old schoolboy.

So why Nazareth when my alternative musical tastes were so decidedly dodgy? Well, the straightforward answer is that I’d fallen in love with their single Broken Down Angel which had broken into the top ten a couple of years earlier and it’s follow-up Bad Bad Boy wasn’t bad either.

Therefore Razamanaz seemed an obvious choice of album when I was presented with a record token. Off I went to Callers (anyone over 40 will remember it being one of the North East’s premier outlets for music) and within minutes, I’d become the proud owner of my first-ever album.

A few weeks later, I was pencilled in to attend Nazareth’s gig at the City Hall. I’d been bought two tickets for my birthday and after insisting it would be hideously uncool to attend with my Dad in tow (about as uncool as owning cassettes by The Wombles and Alvin Stardust in fact) it was reluctantly agreed that my little brother, who was more into Airfix soldiers than music, would be my companion with the old man picking us up from a pre-arranged spot afterwards.

Anyway fate intervened in the cruellest way possible. I was off school ill for the two days preceding the gig and though I insisted I’d made a miraculous recovery by the Wednesday, Mum laid down the law – there was to be no concert for her little broken down angel.

Instead two girls who lived around the corner, probably Bay City Rollers fans, went instead. Speaking to one of them many years later, she admitted the flu would have been infinitely preferable to the noise pollution she claimed she was inflicted to that night. Poetic justice, I thought.

I never did get to see Nazareth live in my youth. In fact, I never bought another album of theirs until replacing the old faithful Razamanaz with the remastered CD and then buying their excellent Anthology a few years ago.

The two girls had bought me a poster of the group as compensation but I can’t even remember putting it up in my bedroom, which, instead,  was plastered with footballers torn out of the pages of Shoot.

It wasn’t as if I’d gone off them completely (by now Alvin, Orinoco and Great Uncle Bulgaria had happily been flushed out of my musical system) and I recall taping Hair Of A Dog from a mate and buying the singles Love Hurts, and May The Sun Shine in the late-70s.

Within three years of buying Razamanaz, I’d become a fully-fledged teenage rocker, having discovered Led Zeppelin, Rush, UFO, Deep Purple, Rainbow et al and Nazareth barely figured on my radar.

But listening to The Anthology has reminded me why I liked them in the first place. Dan McCafferty’s gravel-edged delivery remains one of classic rock’s signature vocals while though he is one of only two original members still playing, their recent material sounds fresh and yet distinctively Nazarene.

I glanced at a set list on a fans’ website the other day and was delighted to see they’re still playing Broken Down Angel, Bad Bad Boy, Razamanaz, Love Hurts and My White Bicycle.

Yippeee. I’m excited, very excited. In fact, I’m about as excited as a 12-year-old schoolboy who definitely hasn’t got the flu!

Ian Murtagh

February 12, 2010

Greatest Hits and Best Of albums are the chocolate icing of music.

You dip your finger into them and if they taste nice, you cut yourself a big slice of cake. And if that tastes delicious too, you help yourself to another piece.

At least that’s how it’s meant to work. The Who’s release of their umpteenth greatest hits album to coincide with last Sunday’s appearance at the Superbowl in Miami got me thinking.

And I must admit I have a love-hate relationship with the breed.

There is no doubt they are highly effective in enticing music fans into a certain band’s back catalogue.

I’ve got a mate who bought Pink Floyd’s Echoes when it was released nine years ago having heard very little of their music.

He enjoyed it so much that in a very short period of time, he’d gone out and bought all their studio albums.

When Led Zeppelin released Mothership in 2007 it introduced a whole new generation of fans to their music.

If my elder son’s class at school was typical, then countless teenagers got into Zeppelin around that time.

Most of us have bought a `best of’ album at some time in our lives. My love affair with Neil Young’s music was sparked by listening to one of his greatest hits packages having previously only really listened to Live Rust.

Similarly I bought Aerosmith’s Big Ones to catch up on the post 1981 material I wasn’t too familiar with.

Some bands have recorded live albums which in effect, are greatest hits recordings, notably Deep Purple with Made in Japan, UFO with Strangers In The Night and Thin Lizzy with Live And Dangerous.

Anyone who hasn’t heard any of their music, I would highly recommend all these live releases to get a full flavour of their respective outputs.

It certainly worked with me and thousands of other fans. And as if to confirm those live releases are effectively `best of’ albums, more than three decades on, their contents still formed the nucleus of set lists.

These days, I will buy `greatest hits’ albums for one of two reasons. In the case of Anthology releases from Nazareth and the Foo Fighters, I bought them because while I like some of their material, I’m not sufficiently into either band to buy every new release.

Possibly the best such album in my collection is Robert Plant’s Sixty Six To Timbuktu which is a double CD featuring some of the most informative and well written sleeve notes I have ever read, one disc featuring songs from his solo career, three of his albums which I had never bought – and a second disc of rarities which even include songs from his pre-Zeppelin days.

A lot of bands – like The Who – will include a second disc of live recordings to entice the devoted fan as well as the novice and usually this represents excellent value for money.

But the greatest hits albums which I – and I suspect everyone else – hates are those which include two, maybe three brand new songs or perhaps a couple of live cuts.

Such packages present a dilemma for avid fans who want every release written by the band but feel cheated into buying a greatest hits collection which includes 75 to 80 per cent of material they already possess, just to get the new stuff.

I fell for this marketing malpractice when I bought REM’s Best Of release a few years ago because it includes the excellent The Great Beyond and also a Bruce Springsteen greatest hits album for three tracks not available elsewhere.

Many bands admit they hate such scams with AC/DC famously never having released a best of album throughout their career and it’s probably correct to say the vast majority have little say in whether they go on sale or not.

But while for most music fans, there is nothing like going out to buy a brand new studio album from your favourite band,  greatest hit albums are invariably the best way into a band.

Ian Murtagh

February 5, 2010

I can probably count on two hands the number of poor concerts I have been to over the past 20 years.

And I only need one hand to count the number of thrilling football matches I’ve reported on in the past 20 months.

Such is life as a football reporter covering the North East of England. But that’s for another time, another place, another blog.

While I still get that tingle of excitement whenever I’m heading to a game, it’s combined with a feeling of wariness. Will my sense of anticipation be matched by fulfillment two hours later? It rarely is.

In contrast, concert-going is invariably a fulfilling experience.

The fact I can still recall so vividly the gigs which left me distinctly underwhelmed points to the rarity of such events.

There are a few which I found mildly disappointing. In recent times, I was left frustrated by the brevity of Airbourne’s last appearance on Tyneside. For all their incredible energy on stage, a set-list lasting less than an hour was not what I had expected.

The Darkness too didn’t tick too many of my boxes and had they survived, I doubt I would have gone to see them live again.

And while I enjoyed seeing the excellent Arcade Fire at the Metro Arena two years ago, the mix was so muffled for the first four or five songs, that enjoyment didn’t really start until 20 minutes into the concert.

Three concerts stand out, however, as big disappointments. I remember seeing Rainbow on the first of two nights they played at Newcastle City Hall in 1979 and the feeling I got throughout was that for Richie Blackmore in particular, it was little more than a practice run for the following show.

My suspicions seemed confirmed when I was told by my brother that Rainbow added the eponymous Stargazer to their set 24 hours later and the Man In Black smashed his guitar to smithereens during the final encore.

Brian Johnson’s first appearance in his home city as AC/DC’s lead singer was also horribly anti-climactic. He seemed riven by nerves, there was little banter with his fellow Geordies and the audience headed home with the distinct impression that rather than having witnessed one of the most memorable nights in the life of the band’s newly appointed frontman, it was just another gig.

The final entry in my `terrible triumvirate’ was at the turn of the millennium during the final throes of Michael Schenker’s rollercoaster UFO career.

The mad axeman’s playing that night was awful, the chemistry between him and Phil Mogg stunk and no-one present that night was at all surprised on hearing he walked off stage at Manchester 24 hours later.

Thankfully, the great gigs outweight the bad perhaps one hundred fold.

And I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve left a concert saying `that’s the best I’ve ever seen’.

Within months of that Rainbow damp squib in Newcastle, I saw them performing at their blistering best -Stargazer and all – at Castle Donington’s first-ever Monsters of Rock.

And AC/DC too, on several occasions, have repaid me for that flat City Hall gig, most recently at last year’s astonishing Hampden Park event.

Having seen UFO at least 10 times, I would estimate at least 80 per cent of the concerts I’ve been to have left me fulfilled and happily, Michael Schenker was as good as I’ve ever seen him when he brought the reformed MSG to Tyneside in December.

Back in the 80s, I recall drawing up a list of my top ten concerts and the order seemed to change with every gig and it’s been the same in recent years with Neil Young, Joe Bonamassa,  Fleetwood Mac, Radiohead, The Scorpions, Aerosmith, Deep Purple plus of course, AC/DC and UFO vying for top spot.

And the Australian Pink Floyd, despite being a tribute act, deserve a worthy mention as well based on the criteria that performance outscores (my high) expectations.

I’m banking on Bad Company and Mark Knopfler to be right up there on my all-time list by the end of 2010 and who knows,   perhaps Airbourne, armed with a meatier catalogue will be challenging too.

Ian Murtagh

January 29, 2010

I bought the Rush albums Permanent Waves, Moving Pictures and Signals within a week of their release.

Next in their discography was Grace Under Pressure which I bought at least 10 years after its release. Indeed, until the underwhelming Vapor Trails came out in 2001, I hadn’t bought a Rush album within a month of it first coming out since my student days.

But they weren’t the only band I ignored for several years. I lost touch with Bruce Springsteen material after buying The River which in hindsight seems strange considering I have always loved that album.

I stopped buying `new’ albums by The Scorpions after Love At First Sting which hit the shelves in 1984 and AC’DC’s Fly On The Wall and Flick Of A Switch were albums I only caught up on many years after their initial release.

The vast majority of Neil Young’s 1980s material remained unbought too though in his case, that’s because he released a number of dud albums in a wilderness era known even to Young fanatics as `the Geffen years.’

Regular readers of this blog will know that the nine years between 1986 and 1995, years when I bought my first house, got married and had kids, were very much a musical hiatus for me.

It wasn’t until I stopped smoking and used to reward myself by buying a CD every week I didn’t light up, that my CD collection started growing again and very quickly, I found out what I had been missing, refreshing myself with music I had forgotten, obtaining back catalogues of former favourites, like Rush, Springsteen and The Scorpions, as well as discovering new music.

During the course of my rekindled love affair with music, I bought 10cc’s Greatest Hits. Four of their studio releases, bought in vinyl format when I was a kid, namely The Original Soundtrack, How Dare You, Deceptive Bends and Bloody Tourists were gathering dust in the loft and I hadn’t listened to any of their music for years.

Last week, however, I snapped up  for a fiver their 1977 live album Live and Let Live, which incidentally had been on my Christmas list when I was a 14-year-old but was never bought.

Listening to it again was like being re-acquainted with an old friend.

Most people over 35 will be familiar with singles such as I’m Not In Love, Life Is A Minestrone, Art For Art’s Sake, I’m Mandy, Fly Me, which is a personal favourite and their last number one Dreadlock Holiday.

But unless you’ve acquired the album Deceptive Bends, which came out after Kevin Godley and Lol Creme quit the band, leaving original members Graham Gouldman and Eric Stewart to sign up new recruits, you will not be aware of a song I consider one of the greatest ever penned.

Feel The Benefit is 13 mins 36 seconds of musical bliss, almost a soft rock version of Stairway To Heaven.

Combining balladry, reggae and a blistering guitar solo, it’s a song I defy any rock fan to dislike.

I’ve never understood why 10cc don’t feature on classic rock radio stations or magazines. Maybe it is because they are so difficult to classify or because they were (wrongly) regarded as just a singles band in their heyday.

A few years ago, I bought The Feeling’s debut album after reading a review which called them the 10cc of the 21st century but I find that comparison misleading.

The Talking Heads were the nearest there has been to successors of the band in their willingness to explore art-rock, blur so many genre demarcations and blend the wild, the weird and the wonderful.

Anyone who hasn’t heard much 10cc or who, like me, hadn’t listened to their music for decades, I’d heartily recommend a visit to Amazon, where most of their albums can be picked up for bargain prices.

Believe me, you’ll Feel The Benefit.

Ian Murtagh

January 22, 2010

The day of reckoning is almost upon us. The moment of truth in this household.

And by the time Airbourne’s new album is bought, perhaps even when Peter Gabriel’s latest release is upon us later this month, tough decisions will have to be made.

The fact is I’m running out of CD space. No. that’s inaccurate. I’ve actually already run out of space to store my collection.

Harsh reality hit home over the festive period when I struggled to squeeze REM’s `39 Songs _ Live At the Olympia@ in between Accelerate and Radiohead’s Pablo Honey.

(And yes, before you ask,  I am one of those sad baskets who stores my CDs alphabetically and chronologically starting with AC/DC’s High Voltage and ending with ZZ Top’s Live From Texas).

Drastic measures have already been taken. I’ve even discarded a few protective sleeves which have ensured CDs several years old remain in pristine condition.

And so the outer sleeves of Pink Floyd’s best of collection `Echoes’  has gone along with the sleeves of Free’s Chronicles, Roger Daltrey’s Moonlighting and The Answer’s Rise (Special Edition).

But it made minimal difference, saving only millimetres, barely enough to accommodate even one more spine.

Next I decided to be ruthless with the 30 or so free CDs I have kept over the years, the ones given away free with Classic Rock, Mojo, Uncut and the Sunday newspapers but considering they come with minimal package anyway, it was barely worth the effort.

Now D-day is upon me and I have drawn up several options.

Option A:  I could always tell my dear wife that she must find somewhere else to store her Stevie Wonder, Michael Buble, Jamelia and Amy Winehouse CDs.

The problem is that Sue has already been more than generous in handing over around 60 per cent of shelf space on our large unit in the kitchen-diner. A deal was reached several years ago that if the dining-room was to become a CD-free zone, she would give me shelves previously reserves for her cookery books.

Option B: I increase the shelf space my CD’s occupy in the aforementioned unit.

A non-starter. Getting rid of cookery books is one thing but asking my nearest and dearest to sacrifice family photographs, school text books and ornaments for more CDs is too much to ask.

Option C: Review my CD collection and sell the ones I don’t listen to.

The fact that each one of them  has already been imported on to my iPod library makes this one sound logical. In fact, if the truth be known, there must be hundreds of them which have not been touched for at least 12 months.  Nevertheless, I would find this a step too far. Each CD was bought for a reason _ because I wanted to listen to it and though there are some I prefer to others, I can think of barely a handful I would willingly part with.

Option D: Limit future purchases to downloading music rather than buying the physical disc.

Ah, the 21st century argument. Yes, in theory, it sounds perfect. In practice, I’m not yet ready for such a radical change.  For heaven’s sake, it took me until 1988 to buy my first CD and even in the early 90s, I was still listening to more LPs than CDs. Eventually I did embrace the CD age but have a heart, for a 40-something like me, one musical revolution in a lifetime is quite sufficient, thank you.

Option E. Invest in some of those impressive looking binders which enable you to keep sleeves and disc, pristine, presentable and safe while reducing storage space by about 80 per cent.

Again, a possibility but I’m rather proud of how good my CD library looks. It’s a talking point at dinner parties and as Sue admits herself, they look far better there than they did piled high on CD stacks in the dining-room.

So there you have it. A dilemma which cannot be, shouldn’t be and won’t be solved easily.

If anyone has alternative solutions, answers on a postcard please. The winner receives Boyzone’s Greatest Hits which somehow founds its way onto my cherished shelves.

That at least, creates a bit of space for Peter Gabriel’s new album.

Ian Murtagh

January 15, 2009

It’s fair bet that over the course of the last 12 months, the vast majority of visitors to this website will have bought a music DVD.

Personally, I have a collection of around 40, which pales in significance when compared to by CD library but, is nevertheless, cherished just as much.

And I am sure it is the same for everyone else in my age group.

For while we grew up in an era when more records were bought than at any other time, our musical experiences were very much aural rather than visual.

Of course, there was Top Of The Pops and the Old Grey Whistle Test but to see one of your favourite bands in concert from your own living room was much harder.

In the 70s, I can recall two programmes on BBC 2 – Sight and Sound, which was in collaboration with Radio One and the short-lived Rock Goes to College.

Indeed, the first time, I ever cast eyes on AC/DC was when we persuaded one of our teachers at school to record their appearance on RGTC and we watched it in the sixth form lecture theatre one snowy lunchtime.

But generally, you had to go to a concert to see your favourite artists in all their live glory.

There were notable exceptions, however, with some of the era’s supergroups hitting the big screen………well. sort of!

Led Zeppelin’s The Song Remains The Same, The Who’s rock opera Tommy and Pink Floyd’s The Wall were essential viewing for rock-obsessed teenagers and I can still recall my guilty pleasure at gaining admission to see Tommy at the Odeon in Newcastle when it had an AA certififcate (14 and over) and I was only just into my teens.

The Zeppelin motion picture used to get frequent late night airings at the Tyneside Cinema to which a few of us would invariably retire after the pubs shut at 10.30 on a Friday night.

It was the same with Floyd’s eagerly-anticipated film which came out roughly two years after the album of the same name and one year after their famous concerts at Earls Court.

There was one common denominator for all three films – they weren’t very good. Of course, I would not have said so at the time and 30 years on, with accessibility to these band so much improved through video and DVD, we’re now spoilt for choice.

Back then, we were so starved of footage, had Jimmy Page, Pete Townsend or Roger Waters been filmed creosoting their respective fances, we’d probably have parted with our pocket money/student grant for the privilege of watching them.

The harsh truth is that The Song Remains The Same, for all it’s spellbinding concert clips,  was hopelessly self-indulgent. Tommy had its moments but was essentially weird. And The Wall, for all it’s excellent music, was pretty boring.

And they can’t be compared to the excellent DVDs released by all three bands in recent years. Led Zeppelin’s self-titled DVD is the best-selling musical DVD in history and is the daddy of them all, while Pink Floyd’s Pulse from their 1994 concerts is one of the best produced on the market.

Some bands have dipped into their archives to release excellent material from their heyday, notably Free with Free Forever, Floyd themselves with the enchanting Live at Pompeii, Rainbow with Live in Munich and Thin Lizzy with Live And Dangerous (which, it must be pointed out is not from the same concert as the double live album).

Bands such as Rush, The Scorpions and UFO have released outstanding footage of more recent tours. Indeed, the former’s DVD coverage is quite prolific, having compiled state-of-the art packages of their last four world tours.

David Gilmour’s Live At Gdansk and Joe Bonamassa’s Royal Albert Hall extravaganza have rarely been out of my DVD player in recent months  and with nothing on telly, I still find it one of the great pleasures in life to open a bottle of Merlot and stick on a two and a half hour concert.

It’s almost as good was watching AC/DC strutting their stuff during that school lunch hour.

Ian Murtagh

January 8, 2009

Just imagine that one day you woke up, switched on the radio and suddenly discovered that you enjoyed listening to hip-hop, rap or R n B.

Well, I’ve had a Road to Damascus experience when it comes to sport. I actually like darts.

That’s right, the `sport’ (and I wouldn’t even have used that word a couple of years ago) I used to slag off at every opportunity, has got me hooked.

Maybe it’s those two gorgeous blondes who escort the players on to the stage at the Ally Pally (see, I’ve even got the right terminology!) or perhaps it’s got something to do with Sky’s bewitching hype – Syd Waddell’s spellbinding commentary, the music, the build-up etc.

Anyone over a certain age will remember `Not The Nine O Clock News’s'  famous sketch feauring Fat Belly and Even Fatter Belly swilling down the beers and shorts on the oche.

Well for two decades and more, that was the image of darts that stuck in my mind. OK, I could appreciate there was a degree of skill involved in attempting to hit a tiny target but for too long, I allowed my sense of prejudice to dominate.

Then last year, I was flicking channels and hit upon the darts. I can’t remember who was playing (or should that be throwing?!) but for some reason, I stayed with it for a few minutes.

Eventually, I started channel-hopping again but kept coming back to the darts to see what was happening. The following night, I watched a couple of matches, then another one and before I knew it, I was converted.

This year’s fare has been even more enjoyable and by Sunday night, the rest of the family even allowed me to watch the final between Phil Taylor and Simon Whitlock on the big widescreen telly in the lounge!

Now I wouldn’t go so far as saying Phil `The Power’ Taylor has become one of Self Made Man’s heroes alongside such icons as Jimmy Page, Michael Schenker, John McEnroe, Michael Collins, Robin Smith and John F Kennedy.

But even in this footballing World Cup year, isn’t it about time he was a genuine contender for the Sports Personality of the Year award?

And believe me, that’s a bit like Ian Paisley campaigning for Gerry Adams to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize!

I started off this blog by comparing my sporting conversion to a leftfield change in musical tastes but fear not, dear reader,  Self Made Man still rocks.

And hip-hop, rap and R n B will remain as much an anathema to me as Rugby League, boxing and synchronised swimming.

But wouldn’t it be great if, just like I’ve been won over to its merits by being exposed to darts, there were thousands of converts to classic rock in 2010.

To those still living in aural darkness I say: give it a chance, you won’t be disappointed!

Ian Murtagh

December 18, 2009

My nearest and dearest tell me that if ever I became the subject matter of the TV programme Room 101, they’d require a two hour slot to accomodate my material.

And they’re dead right. I love life and there’s lots in life I love but it takes me a matter of seconds to rattle up a long list of what I can’t abide.

Prime candidates for Room 101 would be eggs (allergy), pigs (phobia), bus lanes (don’t work), GMTV (insults the intelligence), the Monarchy (an embarrassing anachronism), English jingoism (ugly), ties (uncomfortable),  twitters (get a life), militant atheists (they’ll get a shock!),  boxing (so would you be if you knew someone who’d been seriously hurt) and George Osborne (no explanation required).

But pride of place must be the X-Factor, closely followed by just about every other reality show which has hit our screens over the past decade.

I did think about excluding Big Brother because initially it proved to be a fascinating, if controversial social experiment but like so many programmes of a similar ilk, BB is way past its sell-by date.

The X-Factor obviously isn’t judging by the audience figures.

(And, by the way, a country which prefers to watch a glorified Kareoke contest ahead of the annual Sports Review of the Year can have no cause for complaint in 12 months time if it isn’t chosen to host the 2018 World Cup.)

But I digress. Unlike my other dislikes which I can justify very easily, my hatred of the X-Factor is based on an instinctive antipathy.

It couldn’t be anything else considering I have never watched the programme in its entirety. Of course, it has been on in our house but I am proud to say none of my kids have watched it on a regular basis and even my dear wife only dips into it on an occasional basis.

So why my hostility? Basically because it has rewritten the rules to bring music down to its lowest common denominator.

I can’t argue whether or not the eventual winner has talent because I haven’t heard enough of him but that’s not the point.

And while I tend to judge music by the standard of the musicianship and song-writing, I’m prepared to overlook the fact that so many reality show winners wouldn’t know a treble clef from a crotchet, let alone play an instrument.

I’m sure even the show’s fans would agree with me that there are hundreds of singers out there with equal talent but none of them have the chance to become overnight millionaires.

It is the marketing and the packaging of the X-Factor which I find so distasteful and I know I am not alone in this view. Sting argued far more articulately than I ever could, that the route to superstardom shouldn’t be so easy.

I prefer my bands and artists to have served their apprenticeship, perhaps playing in front of a handful of people at the back of the pub, winning a record deal after numerous rejections,  progressing to small halls and as word spreads, eventually selling out arenas.

Joe Whatshisname will have the Christmas No 1, his debut album will undoubtedly top the chart, thanks to the shopping trolley brigade and I’m sure when he eventually tours, his concerts will be sell-outs.

But what input will he have had in the material he records and will he ever be master of his own destiny?

The X-Factor is to music what McDonalds and Burger King are to food. Popular, instant, convenient but ultimately superficial.

Give me the Joe Bonamassa route any time. He achieved his own notable success in 2009 by selling out the Royal Albert Hall but is a name the vast majority of people in this country will never have heard of.

But I’ll say this - Bonamassa’s mucic will be played for years, even decades to come by those of us who appreciate real, deep-rooted tackle.

And that’s something unlikely to happen to any winner of the X-Factor.

Ian Murtagh

December 11, 2009

I can still recall a Christmas disco I attended as a student around 25 years ago.

If my memory serves me right it was a bash organised for Newcastle University’s History and Politics undergraduates and took place on a boat in Blyth.

Anyway, the first couple of hours were distinctly un-festive. The beer was flat, the girls were playing hard to get and the music was bland.

Then just after 10pm, Slade’s Merry Xmas Everybody was played and the gig started rocking.

Everyone was on the dance-floor, the girls started smiling and even the ale tasted better.

It’s a tale which I imagine can be told by countless party-goers over the past three decades because Slade’s most famous song has that effect.

Merry Xmas Everybody is the Heineken of festive tunes refreshing parts other songs find impossible to reach.

What made the reaction of this particular gathering so significant was that by the early-80s, the Glam rockers weren’t just past their sell-by date, they were considered rather uncool.

Yet such preconceptions were swept away or conveniently ignored the moment the booming bass line introduced the song.

No Christmas bash is complete without Merry Xmas Everybody. The melody may not be traditionally festive in the way that Bing Crosby’s White Christmas or Nat King Cole’s The Christmas Song are.

But the tune is undoubtedly joyful, the beat irresistibly foot-thumping and the lyrics inject the feel-good factor into every listener.

I defy anyone to say they don’t join in when Noddy Holder screams `It’s Chriiiiiiisssttmaaas,’ or, if it’s a multi-generation do, give a knowing wink to the  older brethren when he sings about Granny.

Slade made a comeback of a kind in the mid-80s with the festive My Oh My but it’s their last-ever No. 1 for which they will always be remembered.

Indeed, it’s been said that 1973 was the year which transformed Christmas music. Beforehand, festive music tended to be traditional, derived from carols or adaptations of songs that had been around for years.

But Slade’s masterpiece and Wizzard’s `I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day’ _ which could only manage fourth spot in the charts but down the years has become almost as popular _ set a trend which lasts even to this day.

For artists of every music genre have released Christmas songs ever since. Even the Sex Pistols got in on the act collaborating with Thin Lizzy to form the Greedies and release the very average `Merry Jingle’ in 1979.

There have been some god-awful songs but also some very good ones with A Fairytale of New York by The Pogues and Kirsty McColl my own personal favourite.

It’s 25 years this week since Band Aid’s Do They Know Its Christmas hit the streets and the original version of the song still sounds as haunting today as it did back then when it was accompanied by Michael Burke’s footage of the Ethopian famine.

Do They Know It’s Christmas kept Wham’s Last Christmas off the top of the charts in 1984 which reminds me several girls who frequented the Duke of Wellington in Kenton back then owe me and my mates a considerable sum of money.

Back then, several girls fancied George Michael which we all found ridiculous. For any bloke watching the video of Last Christmas and the unconvincing way he acted the part of the spurned lover realised he was batting for the other side.

Our female companions wouldn’t have it and several £5 bets on the issue were laid. By the time it emerged Michael was gay, many of us had lost touch.

So if you’re reading this Jane, Rhona, Jacqui and Alisia, pay up now.

And since it’s the season of good will, I won”t charge interest!

Ian Murtagh

December 4, 2009

Work commitments prevented me going to see The Answer last Saturday but having received a comprehensive review of the gig from my eldest son, it sounds as if the Irish band are as good as ever.

Sadly, they aren’t as popular as they deserve to be. My son and his two mates didn’t have tickets for the concert and only decided to go at the last minute when they realised they could pay on the door.

Once inside, James was surprised to discover it wasn’t anywhere near a sell-out. Indeed, he could quite easily work his way towards the front of the stage, something which he’d failed to do for gigs at the same venue featuring UFO and The Scorpions.

Elsewhere on this website, the disappointing attendance for The Answer has been put down to the fact the band have spent so long on the road, supporting AC/DC, they’ve neglected their core audience in Britain and Ireland.

But I wonder if there is another reason why they haven’t caught on in the way Muse or a few years ago, The Darkness or even more recently Black Stone Cherry have.

I’ve seen The Answer four times - once at Legends in Newcastle, once at Northumbria Poly, again at Hyde Park Calling on the Aerosmith undercard in 2007 and five months ago supporting AC/DC at Hampden Park.

On each occasion, they were magnificent and I fully expected them to become an Arena attraction very soon.

Their second album Everyday Demons briefly cracked the Top 20 and I’ve even heard one or two of their songs featured on mainstream radio.

But the brutal truth is they remain very much an underground band.

Why is this? Cormac Neeson is widely regarded as owning one of the finest blues rock voices around and the band’s songwriting is catchy, mature and ticks all the right boxes for anyone brought up on the music of Free, Led Zeppelin and even AC/DC.

But perhaps The Answer are too classic for their own good. The Darkness succeeded because they were unashamedly commercial and to some extent a novelty act.

Muse, despite being heavily influenced by bands such as Rush and Radiohead, are sufficiently unique so that they are immediately identifiable.

Black Stone Cherry, a band who haven’t yet graduated to headlining Arenas but who, unlike The Answer, can sell out Academy size concert halls, obviously possess that certain something that persuades some rock fans to shell out money to see them live while staying at home when The Answer are in town.

Certainly The Answer are retro in the sense that their sound is very much in the style of Free and Bad Company but while some musos would say that’s a fault, I believe it’s their greatest quality.

Perhaps modern classic rock - if that’s not a contradiction - is destined to remain a genre spurned by the masses and the music we love will never hit the heights it scaled in the 70s and for a brief period in the early-80s.

I’d love to see The Answer headline Newcastle Arena in front of a sell-out audience but I don’t think it’s ever going to happen.

But when you consider the X Factor pulls in TV audiences of over 10m and Cheryl Cole can have a No 1 single despite having the voice of a adolescent seal, popularity has never been a true measure of quality.

The Answer are a sensational new band - and I don’t care who DOESN’T  think so.

Ian Murtagh

November 27, 2009

Imagine if Deep Purple hadn’t opened their famous Osaka concert in 1972 with Highway Star or excluded Smoke On The Water from their set list on that Japanese tour.

Just supposing UFO had decided against playing Doctor Doctor during the live recording of Strangers In The Night.

Or can you contemplate listening to the Bon Scott era AC/DC classic Whole Lotta Rosie without the audience at the Glasgow Apollo chanting Angus Young’s name as the lead guitarist launches into the song?

The four songs just mentioned are among those bands’ most famous recordings but they only truly captured the imagination of the rock public once the live albums were released.

Indeed though Deep Purple’s Machine Head was already being hailed as the band’s best studio album to date, it was only when Made In Japan came out a few months later that Highway Star and Smoke On The Water, with Richie Blackmore accentuating the most famous riff in music that the two songs took on a life of their own.

It was the same with Whole Lotta Rosie which sounds relatively tame on Let There Be Rock but on the live If You Want Blood, You’ve Got It, would probably be included in the top 10 of most fans’ favourite AC/DC songs.

UFO’s Doctor Doctor made such an impact live that it was actually released as a single. It’s so unlike the original version on Phenomenon that even the words to the opening verse are different.

Another famous song which bears little similarity to the studio cut is Cheap Trick’s I Want You To Want Me.

On the distinctly bland In Colour, the songs sounds nothing more than a catchy pop song. Recorded live in front of thousands of Japanese fans on the excellent At The Budokan, it clinched its place in classic rock’s hall of fame.

It’s often been said that rock bands only come into their own when they are live in concert and while there is some truth in the argument, to me, it’s very much a back-handed compliment.

Studio albums are the barometer for which any artist should be judged and rock bands, who have always tended to spurn the singles market, take great pride in the consistency of their output.

But live albums and more particularly, concert set lists do have a huge influence on how history judges a particular song.

Led Zeppelin, for example, never played the bluesy Tea For One from Presence live nor did the rockier Custard Pie or indeed The Rover get a public airing even once. Had they done, those excellent songs might today be regarded in the same way as Black Dog or even Kashmir are.

UFO’s Strangers In The Night is so highly regarded that it’s tempting to think anything from that era which WASN’T on it, was, in some way, second rate.

But that’s not true. Had Phil Mogg and the boys chosen Try Me from Lights Out instead of Love To Love it might be judged as fondly today. And there are many fans of the band, who swear blind Belladonna from No Heavy Petting is among their best-ever tracks.

We’ll finish where we started with Deep Purple, who are currently in my bad books for shamefully not visiting the North East on their current UK tour.

When the last appeared at the Newcastle Arena on the opening night of their 2007 tour, they played Machine Head in its entirety giving air-time to songs such as Maybe I’m A Leo and Never Before, which had rarely been played live over the years.

I thought the plan worked well though DP dropped the experiment for later concerts - and surprise, surprise, the songs omitted, with the exception of Pictures Of Home, were the ones not on Made In Japan.

The 70s was the decade of the live album but little can all those bands who released concert recordings back then have realised they would prove so wonderfully endurable that they’d remain slaves to their set list more than 30 years later.

Ian Murtagh

November 20, 2009

Mid-November, the garden rake’s working overtime clearing leaves from the lawn and Mum’s birthday’s out of the way.

Time to start thinking Christmas.

By that, I don’t mean we are one of those ridiculous families who start hanging up decorations once Guy Fawkes Night is over.

In fact, we’re very much traditionalist when it comes to the festive build-up.

Advent Calenders on December 1 (yes, even the 18-year-old - he insists!), poinsettia’s around the house a week or so later by which time a handful of the 100-odd Christmas cards we receive each year will have arrived.

And when - and only when - the cards are hanging and the Yuletide ornaments have been dusted down will we buy the Christmas Tree and take the crib with its figures of the Holy Family out of their box.

But that’s for another month. November is about Christmas shopping for loved ones and, just as importantly, compiling your own Santa’s list.

Ever since I can remember, music, whether in LP, cassette, CD or DVD form has featured heavily on my must-have presents.

Christmas Day 1975. for example,  was a particular favourite of mine since that was the day the family finally set foot into the 20th century by buying a new Hi-Fi system.

And having previously only owned a handful of cassettes. I was given Queen’s newly-released Night At The Opera, How Dare You by 10CC and er..Abba’s Greatest Hits!

Christmas Day 2009 will, hopefully, bring a few more musical treats (no Abba please) though nothing by my favourite band or artist.

For the truth is that I’ve got virtually everything I want from the likes of Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Rush, REM and Neil Young.

And if there’s a new album just out that I fancy, I tend to buy it on its release. So - and this is particularly directed to aunties, uncles and cousins I might not see before the big day - I’ve already got the latest cuts from newbies such as Kasabian and Glasvegas and oldies like UFO, all of whom have written new material this calender year.

No, Christmas for me is about strengthening my back catalogue of The Who, for instance, or Genesis. Or perhaps asking for a new live album. Or a DVD to bolster my pitiful collection of 34 of the rock music variety.

As for the kids, I’m afraid they have gone all digital which at least rules out me repeating my disgraceful behaviour of yesteryear.

Regular readers of this blog will know sons one, two and three all like their rock music and there have been times - well, two Christmases, to be exact - when that has proved very useful.

For I’ve bought them presents I wanted myself. Four years ago, DVDS by Queen and Paul Rodgers and UFO were in their stockings. They appreciated them - but not half as much as their Dad did.

A couple of years earlier, I had bought them albums by the Foo Fighters and Nirvana, bands I could never say were among my favourites but at least I wouldn’t be ashamed to place their CDs in the shelves alongside my own collection.

Which I would have been had they asked for anything by S Club Seven, Take That or Dizzee Rascal.

It’s not just the boys who have been exploited at Christmas time. My brother still hasn’t forgiven me for my dastardly deed leading up to his 13th birthday.

Of course, it’s all his own fault for having a birthday on New Year’s Eve but back then, it was very convenient for me to cash in one of my record vouchers to buy him a Beatles album.

I was skint, the voucher was there. Bingo.

He found out. He was not amused.

Ian Murtagh

November 13, 2009

Irish band U2 can justifiably call themselves the biggest band in the world right now.

Their latest album No Line On The Horizon is rousing evidence that as songwriters, they remain at the peak of their powers while anyone who has witnessed their truly astonishing 360 degrees tour would testify to the fact that along with AC/DC, they’re probably the best live act around.

Yet had circumstances been different today, they might be sharing centre stage on music’s summit with another group from the Emerald Isle.

It is approaching 24 years since Phil Lynott, singer, bassist, poet and rock god  tragically lost his life but the Dubliner - he was born in West Bromwich to a Brazilian father and an Irish mother and briefly raised in Manchester but always insisted he was 100 per cent Irish - lives on in his music with Thin Lizzy.

Listening to Thin Lizzy’s music today what strikes me more than anything else is how modern and relevant it still sounds.

Play the ubiquitous Live And Dangerous album to anyone who’d never heard it and I would defy them to say the year it was made. In fact, the recently outed Still Dangerous which TL guitarist Scott Gorham discovered in a vault before deciding it was so good, it deserved a wider audience, is arguably the best live release of 2009.

Lynott was a frontman to compare with the greats such as Freddie Mercury, Robert Plant, Bon Scott and Mick Jagger yet he was so much more than a singer.

As a bassist, he was as adept as many musicians who concentrated solely on that instrument while his lyrics which welded testosterone-fuelled verse (The Boys Are Back In Town),  Gaelic culture (Black Rose) , love songs (Sara) and,during his latter years, painfully personal odes about his own drug addiction (Got To Give it Up) led one critic to once label him a modern-day Yeates.

Yet it’s neither his music nor his words which convince me that Lynott would be a huge star today. More his charisma, larger-than-life personality and good looks.

Lynott would have loved the celebrity-obsessed world of today and the starry-eyed world would have loved him back. Whether he would still be fronting Thin Lizzy is debatable of course but I suspect he’d have taken the band to new heights while carving out a solo career and now be regarded and respected in the same way as someone like Eric Clapton.

I’m heading to Dublin this weekend for Ireland’s World Cup Play-off qualifer against France and the rugby international against Australia both at Croke Park and if I have time, I might pay a visit to St Fintan’s Cemetry in Sutton where Lynott is buried.

The journey across the Irish Sea is one made many times by an old mate of mine, Mark, who lays claim to being Phil Lynott’s most devoted follower.

Mark, who named his daughter Lizzy and between 1977 and 1984 saw the band over 20 times, was in Dublin four years ago for the unveiling of a magnificent bronze statue to Lynott in Harry Street, just off Grafton Street, the city’s main shopping street.

And he tells a poignant story of the day 20 years ago when he was on business in the Irish capital and decided to visit Lynott’s grave. As he was placing flowers just below the headstone and saying a quiet prayer to himself, he was aware of someone watching him.

He turned around to be confronted by a woman in her late-50s or early-60s smiling gently at him. “Hello, I’m Philomena, Phillip’s mother,” she said as way of introduction before thanking him for his gesture and inviting him back to her home.

Over a cup of tea, she told Mark how  she took great solace in the fact so many fans visited ‘my Phillip’ and she loved spending time swapping tales, her shedding light on Phil the son, them telling her how mighty a rock star he was.

I haven’t seen Mark for several years but I suspect when the latest version of Thin Lizzy, fronted by John Sykes and Gorham, split up a few months ago, he wouldn’t have shed too many tears.

The tears were shed on January 4, 1986 when one of rock music’s greatest icons succumbed to heart failure and pneumonia.

Ian Murtagh

November 6, 2009

The noughties have been really nice when it comes to rock music.

We’re fast approaching that time of year when everyone compiles their lists of best album of the year, favourite gigs and it will be no different on this website.

But it’s been over looked that we are rapidly coming to the end of the first decade of the new millennium and it’s a decade that has produced some quite outstanding rock albums.

In fact, I’d go so far as saying that there have been more good albums released over the past ten years than at any time since the early 1980s.

Of course, there is a very good chance that much of  the music written in this period will prove to be a glorious last hurrah from bands whose members are already well into their 60s.

But on January 1, 2000, we could never have imagined such a rich output from groups who it was generally assumed, had peaked many years previously.

Certainly I don’t think anyone would argue that the vast majority of classic rock groups have released better material this decade than during the 90s.

Take AC/DC for example. Now admittedly The Razor’s Edge and Ballbreaker were an improvement on albums such as Fly On the Wall and Flick Of The Switch. And I’ll acknowledge that 2001′s Stiff Upper Lip was nothing special.

But few would disagree that last year’s Black Ice is their best collection of new songs since For Those About To Rock.

There’s life in Rush too. Though Vapor Trails was disappointing, Snakes And Arrows would find a place in most fans top ten albums by the Canadian power trio.

And like AC/DC, their live concerts in this country over two tours, were as good as any we witnessed in the 70s, 80s or 90s.

The Scorpions’ last two albums Unbreakable and Humanity Hour One were spectacular returns to form after they’d seemingly hit a trough 10 years ago.

UFO too have successfully re-ignited themselves and though the decade started with the self-destructive group still reeling from Michael Schenker’s will he, won’t he quit antics, their three most recent albums with Vinnie Moore have been worthy efforts.

Neil Young has not exactly been the most consistent songwriter during his long career with albums ranging from the breathtakingly brilliant to absolute dross. He will never scale the heights of his 70s output again but though his recovery probably came in the 90s after some experimental mish-mash led to Geffen threatening to sue him, the millennium has brought fine albums such as Chrome Dreams, Greendale and Prairie Wind.

Whitesnake, Def Leppard, even Deep Purple and the Rolling Stones have all released albums in the past 10 years which have been better than their material from the preceding ten. I could go on because there are countless more examples.

It’s probably expecting too much for the tens/ teens or whatever the next decade is to be labelled to match this one.

And I would imagine like most classic rock fans, the 70s will always be my favourite decade when it comes to music.

But if I was to draw up a list of my favourite 100 albums of all time, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if  noughties output comfortably eclipsed the previous two decades.

Ian Murtagh

October 30, 2009

It’s not exactly my proudest achievement in life but the outcome does give me a glow of satisfaction.

Parenting can be a thankless task. Generosity outweighs gratitude roughly tenfold and as kids enter their teens, if you say white, they’ll instinctively say black just to be different.

None of my three sons have inherited by obsession with sport, only one would consider himself as Irish as he is English despite his family heritage and, to my horror, they all love eggs - a food I’ve had an allergy to since childhood and the smell  of which I find as disgusting as dog poo.

But there is a wonderful consolation. James, Will and little Michael all love rock music.

On the television front, I may be in a minority of one in my refusal to watch such bilge as Dr Who, East Enders, Malcolm in the bloody Middle or Britain’s Got Talent.

And so I’m relegated to the conservatory for my daily fix of Sky Sports, the History Channel, Sky Arts or anything remotely resembling current affairs.

But at least I’m spared the sounds of rap, hip-hop or one-dimensional pop coming from the respective bedrooms.

However, a caveat. The boys - all three of them - would be horrified to discover the contents of this week’s blog and the 18-year-old and 16-year-old would deny until they were blue in the face that their musical tastes bear any resemblance to `the old man’.

And nine-year-old Michael too agrees that it is incredibly `uncool’ to have anything in common with a 40-something.

But I have the evidence to prove my point.

It all started when the eldest was three or four and he took a liking to the Van Halen song Panama. The problem was that he thought Dave Lee Roth was singing ‘Animal’, as he jumped from sofa to settee to armchair singing his little heart out.

Trust me, breaking the news to him a few years later that he’d got it so wrong was almost as traumatic as informing him Santa Claus did not exist.

Of all my sons, James is the one whose musical tastes are closest to my own. Like his brothers, he can’t abide Neil Young or Pink Floyd, much to my chagrin.

But he’s been to numerous concerts with me and my mates - UFO, Scorpions, Rush, Deep Purple, Whitesnake - and enjoyed them all.

His favourite band (I think) is Metallica, whose music I’ve never particularly warmed to, he’s really into Pearl Jam these days and the last time I asked him, Permission to Land by the now-defunct The Darkness was his top album.

His first love was the Finnish Goth band Him though that relationship quickly cooled after he saw them turn in a drunken performance at the Academy.

Like most of his peers, James’ musical collection is almost entirely downloaded (don’t ask!) and his iPod is very much song-orientated as opposed to album-orientated.

At least 50 per cent of the groups I’ve never heard of. I tell him his tastes are far too heavy for me, he claims they are far more eclectic.

But there is sufficient classic rock on it to console me that musically at least, he’s not going astray.

Will, two years younger, can’t stop playing Muse which isn’t a bad thing considering their latest album The Resistance is one of my contenders for Album of the Year.

Their mother reckons he has the best musical taste of the lot and certainly it’s more varied than his brothers. The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Kings of Leon, The Kaiser Chiefs, Kasabian, Enter Shikari, The Beatles and The Kinks are among the groups whose music blasts out of the brand new laptop he was given for excellent exam results this summer.

And to my wife’s delight, he’s rather partial to some Stevie Wonder now and then.

Finally, we come to nine-year-old Michael, who listens to Guns N’ Roses, Guns N’ Roses and…yes, you’ve guessed it, he’s absolutely fixated by the band.

During our summer holiday, he insisted Welcome To The Jungle, Sweet Child O’ Mine and Paradise City were played at least three times a day on the car music system and my iPod library bears witnessed to the fact those three tunes have continued to be played relentlessly in the subsequent weeks.

We’ve finally persuaded our youngest to broaden his musical horizons and he has ……….by listening to Use Your Illusion, Volumes I and II, The Spaghetti Incident and er, Guns N’ Roses’ Greatest Hits, despite Dad telling him that Welcome To The Jungle sounds exactly the same on that album as it does on Appetite for Destruction.

Strangely, he refuses to listen to Chinese Democracy, announcing with some justification and no little logic for someone of his age, that it’s the product of a band called Guns n’ Roses in name only and that Axl Rose has far too high an opinion of himself to carry on using that name without the likes of Slash and Duff McKagen alongside.

However, Michael’s greatest triumph, in the eyes of his oh-so-proud father is his steadfast refusal to attend school discos `because they play rubbish music.’

That’s my boy!

Ian Murtagh

October 23, 2009

Google the word `Rainbow’ and there are references to the well-known charity trust, the girl-guides, the children’s TV programme of the 1970s, a travel company specialising in African tours and even a `Magic Fairies’ website.

On Wikipedia, we’re informed Rainbow  means an optical and meteorological phenomenom that causes a spectrum of light to appear in the sky.

Even when the internet’s fount of all knowledge invites us to disambiguate the word, there’s a long, long list before we eventually hit upon this description under the sub-title: Music - Rainbow: a classic hard rock/heavy metal band, formed by former Deep Purple guitarist and co-founder Ritchie Blackmore.

It wasn’t meant to be this way when the egotisitcal Blackmore quit Purple in the mid-70s to form his own group which he believed could become the biggest in the world.

More than 30 years later and Rainbow have become the forgotten band of classic rock. Very few people under the age of 35 have even heard of them while for many others, the name will trigger opinions on Radiohead’s latest album In Rainbows.

Yet to those of us who can remember Blackmore’s band in their prime, they remain one of the most loved of their genre.

The problem - and perhaps the real reason their popularity never endured - was that the guitarist’s idea of their career route and the fans’ opinions turned out to be very different.

Ask any rock fan over 40 to compile a list of his or her favourite albums and it’s a fair bet at least one Rainbow album will appear on it.

And it’s a racing certainty that it will come from the Ronnie James Dio era between 1975 and 1979, most likely Rainbow Rising, their second album.

The dragons and dungeons, enchantment and bewitchment, sword and sorcerer’s lyrics were lapped up by Rainbow’s Tolkien-obsessed adolescent followers even if they did provoke ridicule from the music cognoscenti.

But Dio’s searing vocals fused magically with Blackmore’s Fender Strat to produce music which, to this day still sounds as powerful and feisty as it did on release.

Yet Blackmore belonged to the school which believed the grass was greener on the other side and his obsession with achieving mainstream success and cracking the US market led to him effectively sacking Dio.

I can still recall the shock among rock fans when Sounds newspaper broke the news that just months after the release of the excellent Long Live Rock n’ Roll, Dio had been kicked out. And what made it worse that his replacement was the unknown Graham Bonnet, who wore loud Hawaii shirts, white suits and had his short back and sides’ hair slicked back.

Yet for a time, Blackmore’s gamble appeared to have paid off. In 1979 and again the following year, the Man In Black pipped Jimmy Page to win the prestigious Sounds’ best guitarist poll and Rainbow headlined the inaugural Monsters of Rock festival at Castle Donington, supported by bands such as Judas Priest, The Scorpions, Saxon and April Wine.

But perhaps more significantly for Blackmore, the new album Down To Earth spawned two hit singles , both of which cracked the Top 10 in this country and led to regular appearances on Top Of The Pops.

A mate of mine, Jason from Huddersfield, admitted recently that the first two 45s he ever bought were All Night Long and Since You’ve Been Gone, quite a coup considering this was someone destined to fall in love with The Smiths and who’d later find Hair Metal about as appealing as a season ticket at Bradford City.

It looked as if Blackmore had achieved his double whammy of rock megastardom and commercial success. Little did I know as I watched the fireworks explode at Donington after a blistering set which included the legendary Stargazer and late drummer Cozy Powell’s 1812 Overture solo, Rainbow would  never hit such heights again.

Blackmore and Bonnet’s relationship was never built to last and within weeks the singer had been replaced by American Joe Lynn Turner, whose FM friendly voice took Rainbow down an even more commercial route.

The next album Difficult To Cure was impressive, particularly the Russ Ballard-written single I Surrender and it’s follow-up Can’t Happen Here and it was at this time that the band came closest to establishing themselves in America.

But 30 years on, the irony of Rainbow’s new musical direction cannot be overstated. Less than a decade earlier Blackmore had quit Deep Purple, frustrated at the way he perceived David Coverdale and Glenn Hughes were taking the band.

Yet listen to Difficult To Cure and it sounds far more different to Rising than Purple’s Stormbringer does to Machine Head for example.

Rainbow eventually disbanded when Purple’s famous Mark II line-up reformed and though there was a brief, ill-fated reunion in the 90s, their time in the spotlight was over.

With Blackmore more a medieval minstrel than a rock god these days, there is little chance of them coming together again which is a pity.

Bands such as AC/DC, Aerosmith, Whitesnake and Rush have all produced some of their best work in recent years and can all sell out arenas worldwide yet for a time 30 odd years ago, none were as big, as popular, as majestic or arguably as bloody good as Rainbow.

Ian Murtagh

October 16, 2009

October 9, 2009

I heard Cockney Rebel’s wonderful Make Me Smile the other day - and it did.

Because it’s a song which evokes such rich memories of my youth, specifically visits to the Stage Door on the edge of Newcastle’s Chinatown.

To describe the Stage Door as a nightclub would be an insult to an after-hours drinking den which became an institution to so many of my era. The place was special for so many reasons, not least the fact you didn’t have to dress up to the nines to gain admission.

Many a night, we’d end up there dressed in jeans, trainers and sweat shirts having made a spur-of-the-moment , alcohol induced decision. It was usually sparked by someone remarking that ‘tonight’s nurses’ night’.  Of course, every night was ‘nurses’ night’ at The Stage Door.

Talk to anyone of a certain age and they’ll say reminisce fondly about the Stage Door, which I’d describe more as an ultra-cool speakeasy than a plastic, posers’ paradise, aka a nightclub. Sadly the club closed down a few years ago but its memory burns bright.

It was said that the only song played every night there was the aforementioned Make Me Smile, a superbly constructed song which somehow transcends genres and negotiates a fine line between sleazy bar-room blues and straightforward pop balladry.

I cannot recall going there once and not hearing it booming from the speakers which dominated the small stage area and you were guaranteed that even those of us more focussed on drinking, chatting up girls or just looking on in a haze, were tempted to strut our stuff on the compact dancefloor when Steve Harley’s lazy sounding voice emerged.

The Stage Door played ‘our sort of music’. It wasn’t a heavy rock disco but over the course of an evening, the DJ would play a smattering of The Rolling Stones, Fleetwood Mac, Derek and The Dominoes, Blue Oyster Cult, The Doors and perhaps even a blast of AC/DC or Rainbow. It kept us all happy.

To obtain entry to the Stage Door was a complex affair and to this day, I don’t know if membership afforded special privileges or not. I joined at least five times due to the fact my treasured membership card inevitably got irretrievably damaged in the wash - and I wasn’t alone in the washed-up stakes.

Jimmy, the owner and doorman was all-powerful. If he thought you were drunk, entry was impossible. Though ,to his enormous credit, he exercised an impressively liberal view of inebriation.

Show your card and you were immediately transported to the front of the queue and told you qualified for a reduced rate of entry. Girls, especially pretty ones, often obtained free entry. It was probably so that Jimmy could entice potential customers by telling them it was nurses’ night.

Talking of girls, the Stage Door was the scene of the most shameful episode in my mate Charlie’s colourful life. Now Charlie, it must be said, had a better track record with the opposite sex than most of us. It might have had something to do with his patter but probably more to do with his Latin looks.

Anyway on this particular night, we decided to have a competition - who could get off with the ugliest girl. Twenty five years on and, of course, I realise it was a pathetic adolescent exercise in trying to make your excuses for lack of success before the event even started.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, Charlie won - or at least he thought he did. I can’t remember too many details of this embarrassing puerile night except at around 2.15am, Charlie emerged arm in arm with a girl, on to Stowell Street, to announce to the rest of us ‘Look, I’ve won’.

The girl, it must be said, was quite attractive and certainly did not deserve the answer to her inevitable question ‘What have you won, Charlie?’.

To this day, I still squirm at the memory.

Ian Murtgah

October 2, 2009

How many times have we heard someone say they can’t get into a band, an album or a song?

In the past fortnight, I’ve bought three albums - The Resistance by Muse, Mark Knopfler’s Get Lucky and the remastered version of UFO’s Making Contact, initially released 25 years ago.

I’ve ‘got into’ the former, am struggling to get into Knopfler’s latest studio release and have ‘got in and then out of’ Making Contact as quickly as I did in the 80s.

But exactly what does ‘get into’ mean?

We’ve all been through the process of listening to a piece of music for the very first time and disappointingly finding ourselves underwhelmed.

Indeed, it’s rare for anyone to fall in love with an album after just one spin. Of course, there are notable exceptions, AC/DC’s Back In Black proved an instant hit to these ears from the moment Brian Johnson’s hammer crashed down on the Hell’s Bells. Lovedrive by The Scorpions was another that did it for me instantly.

There are countless more examples, however, of albums which didn’t impress quite so quickly.

Radiohead’s The Bends and OK Computer, for instance, didn’t just take a few listens to before I enjoyed them. It was more like years.

Initially, the music sounded too abstract, too strange, unnecessarily complex, When I gave it a second chance, it was intense, deep, meaningful and complex.

It was a similar experience with Elbow who I first came across on Jools Holland’s excellent BBC2 show.

Listening to the much-hyped The Seldom Seen Kid, I failed to find material anywhere near as good as the song One Day Like This, which I liked so much on first hearing it that I asked my mate to lend me the album.

It wasn’t until I went on holiday and took in the music on my iPod under the Mediterranean sun that I appreciated its beauty.

We’ve all reserved judgement on albums until hearing them several times before announcing to the world our approval.

But does ‘getting into’ music merely mean you’ve familiarised yourself with it? Sometimes I suspect that is the case.

Listen to a new album, any new album, eight, nine, 10 times over a short period of time and the chances are you’ll begin to like it.

On the other side of the scale, if an album hits you straight between the eyes from the outset, it doesn’t always mean you’ll love it forever.

Taking two Indie groups as examples, I remember being bowled over by The Fratellis and the Kaiser Chiefs after hearing their debut material but a few years on, the music sounds one-dimensional, bland and uninteresting.

Catchy melodies may earn instant applause but rarely enduring love.

So I never despair when after one or two listens, a new album falls way short of expectations and I sound a personal note of caution when I’m humming a tune after just a couple of spins.

LIke a pet, rock music is for life, not for Christmas or a rainy weekend.

I’d far rather fall in love gradually and tentatively before enjoying a lifelong relationship with a piece of music than having a brief fling with it.

And by the way, time isn’t always a healer. I bought UFO’s Making Contact in CD format for the first time having decided years ago,  it was easily the worst release of their careers.

For some unexplainable reason, I convinced myself that having not played the vinyl version for at least 10 years, it would sound better now. It doesn’t!

Ian Murtagh

September 25, 2009

Years ago, I used to love going to nightclubs but I hated being in them.

Remember the days when pubs called last orders at 10.20pm, stopped serving at 10.30pm and kicked you out long before 11? Nights out needed to be longer and so, money permitting, we’d head off to a nightclub, primarily to carry on drinking, enjoy the craic and if we were lucky, pull a bird.

But the one thing we’d never do was go to a nightclub for the music or, heaven forbid, to dance. Looking back, such nights were invariably big letdowns. The beer was overpriced, rarely good and always served in plastic glasses.

You’d talk to your mates knowing full well they could hear about as much of what you were trying to say as you could of their conversations. And as for our attempts at chatting up the girls, well, I recall some hilarious incidents.

Stage one and two were straightforward enough. You’d try and catch the eye of a good looking girl and if the body language was encouraging, it was time to approach her and ask for a dance. That’s when the fun started. “So what’s your name?” you’d shout in her ear trying desperately not to spit.

She’d shout something back and you’d smile, pretending you’d heard correctly and lying that it was your favourite girl’s name: “Oh, Noreen, that’s lovely.”

Not a great start when she turns out to be Lauren!

“So what do you do Noreen, er, sorry Lauren?” you enquire, praying she’s a nurse, an air hostess, a student or still at Finishing School. Again, you put on your falsest smile when she tries to make herself heard - and fails. “You work in a butchers. That’s nice. At least you won’t go short of meat.”

My chances of hitting the jackpot that night have suddenly dipped alarmingly and my lame humour gets even worse. “Oh, sorry, a jewellers. I beg your pardon. How stupid of me because you look like a girl who deals in watches, not sausages.”

It’s normally at this point that you politely suggest that the two of you could perhaps retire to somewhere a little quieter, more intimate and cosy but sadly on this occasion, the mission was aborted long before stage four.

So there you have the classic dilemma of the nightclub scenario for those of us not into disco music. Music and dancing are why girls head there, drinking and pulling why boys do.

When the two hit it off, you’re even prepared to swallow your musical principals and dance to Spandau Ballet’s Gold because you know it might lead to something better. To us, nightclubs were a means to an end and the music didn’t really come into it which was just as well because the nearest most of them came to playing decent stuff was a grudging blast of ELO’s Don’t Bring Me Down or Brown Sugar by the Rolling Stones.

Now I’m not for one minute pretending that Whitesnake’s Lie Down, I Think I Love You or AC/DC’s The Jack are a way into a girl’s er, heart. And, OK, I admit headbanging is not the most aesthetically pleasing style on the dancefloor.

But when the music’s played at full volume anyway and it’s impossible to hear yourself think (well, that was always my excuse!)  you might as well have some Zeppelin or Floyd interspersed with Wham, Abba and the Bee Gees.

It never happened of course and from what I recall, neither did any beautiful relationships. Oh, my mates and I all had our moments but in the main, nightclubs provided us with more hangovers, empty wallets and rejections than nocturnal pleasures.

Ian Murtagh

September 18, 2009

I never really liked Dire Straits when I first heard them.

OK, I admired Mark Knopfler’s fretwork on Sultans of Swing and was impressed that a band such as his could hit the charts at a time when punk was exploding onto the scene.

And I must admit I found Romeo and Juliet quite a catchy tune and its subject matter clever. But not to put too fine a point on it,  Dire Straits sounded boring and Knopfler’s voice dull.

My mates marvelled at the beauty of Love Over Gold’s Telegraph Road and the quiet intensity of Private Investigations. Me? Forgive me but I think I called it piped music.

Then I had a Road to Damascus conversion and it probably coincided with the release of  Brothers In Arms. Dire Straits’ best-selling album has been described as the music which launched the CD and while it’s against my very nature to be part of some mass trend, I have to agree.

For listening to Brothers In Arms on the new format, I suddenly `got’ Dire Straits. Whether it was a case of my music tastes maturing, mellowing, becoming more eclectic or simply listening to albums on sonically superior equipment, I began to appreciate the subtlety, range and intensity of Knopfler’s output.

It was also about this time that Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here was added to my collection because I fell in love with Shine On You Crazy Diamond which remains to this day the song I’d listen to on a desert island given just one choice.

Like David Gilmour’s guitar work, Knopfler’s is as much about the space between notes as it is about his incredible dexterity. For the past 25 years or so, I’ve bought every new release from On Every Street, his last album with Dire Straits to this week’s Get Lucky, his new solo album.

And next May - at long last - I’ll have the chance to watch Knopfler in concert. I’ve actually met him twice. Knopfler attended Gosforth High School, which is a few hundred yards from my home and during his days living on Tyneside, drank in The County, which has been my local since my time as a musical Philistine.

A keen Newcastle fan, he took his kids to the club’s training ground in Durham before the 1999 FA Cup semi-final against Chelsea at Wembley, having been invited to meet the squad by Robson.

A few of us approached him and he was only too happy to talk - for several minutes - about football, music and the beer in the County. A more charming, friendly and humble man, you could not wish to meet.

Alan Shearer has always been a big fan of MK and asked him to officially open Shearers Bar at St James’s Park a few years later. That night, The guest of honour played Local Hero – a modern day Toon anthem. It is still the only time I’ve seen him play live.

I was also present - along with the editor of this website - at a Royal Variety Club lunch in honour of Knopfler at Newcastle Civic Centre when Shearer was outbid in the auction for the guitarist’s Fender Stratocaster.

Twice I’ve been on holiday when Knopfler’s toured and once, his decision to play at the City Hall rather than the Arena, meant tickets were like gold dust and I never managed to lay my hands on one.

There will be no-one more excited than me when I head for the Arena on May 22 because the concert will complete a musical odyssey for me. For it will mean that with the exception of the Bon Scott-era AC/DC and the Roger Waters-era Pink Floyd, I’ll have seen all my favourite bands or artists in concert. I can’t wait.

Ian Murtagh

September 11, 2009

I can still distinctly remember one particular Maths lesson at primary school.

We were learning all about graphs and charts and the teacher decided to aid our understanding by carrying out a survey on our favourites songs by The Beatles.

The resulting bar chart showed two clear winners with most of the class voting the same way. Being eight and nine-year-olds, most of us voted for Yellow Submarine or She Loves You (Yeah, Yeah, Yeah….) though of course a few soppy girls plumped for I Want To Hold Your Hand.

And Robert, who was far too clever for his own good, chose some obscure song the rest of us hadn’t heard of called Day In The Life, apparently because `Daddy says its music for tomorrow’.

The release of Rock Band in Wii, X-box and PlayStation formats, along with remasters of all the Fab Four’s albums, means we can expect another outbreak of Beatlemania in the weeks and months ahead.

To be honest, I was too young to remember the Beatles at the peak of their popularity. Indeed my first memories of them were watching films such as Help and A Hard Day’s night, though as a kid I recall thinking how weird the psychedelic cartoon Yellow Submarine was.

I didn’t own any Beatles’ record before I was at least 15 and have never considered myself an avid fan yet like millions, indeed billions of musical fans, their output represents the soundrack of my life in so many respects.
And while it is undeniable they are the most influential group in history, it can be argued they created the template for virtually every genre that followed.

The Kinks may have recorded the first ‘heavy metal’ riff with You Really Got Me but wasn’t Helter Skelter the first evidence of hard rock? And while Pink Floyd’s Piper at the Gates of Dawn is often regarded as the first truly progressive album, didn’t the Beatles’ precede them with the recording of Revolver one year earlier in 1966?

It’s often said that there were two bands called The Beatles. One was the pop band that took the world by storm from the moment Love Me Do was released. They had short haircuts, wore collar and tie, played straightforward tunes and toured regularly.

Five years on, the music had become more complicated, their appearance more bohemian (or scruffier as my Dad claimed) and they stopped touring and began experimenting.

Today, you’ll find music fans fall into two brackets. Pop fans tend to prefer their early output, rock fans their later stuff. I own six albums by The Beatles and my favourites, in order, are Abbey Road, Sergeant Pepper and Let It Be, all released post-1967.

As a kid, it was the instant appeal of songs such as She Loves You which struck a chord with me and my mates, hence the predictable results of that bar chart. Today’s generation are more musically sophisticated, probably because the Beatles themselves were trailblazers for so many subsequent bands of all varieties.

And if a survey was carried out in Michael’s class, it wouldn’t be the child-friendly, catchy melodies of Yellow Submarine or She Loves You which came out on top. Boys such as my son, who loves Guns n’ Roses, would plump for something like Come Together, Get Back or All You Need Is Love.
Yet those kids who prefer rap or hip-hop to rock music would still find something in The Beatles’ catalogue to like.

The fact that something by The Beatles has appealed to someone, somewhere and will continue to appeal for generations to come is the mark of their greatness.

Ian Murtagh

September 4, 2009

First, may I apologise to those who have spotted me pounding the streets, listening to Pink Floyd’s Great Gig In The Sky on my iPod.

And a sincere thanks to that kind soul who gave me the benefit of doubt and decided against calling for the men in white coats to take me away as Led Zeppelin’s Dazed And Confused pounded through my earplugs.

As if the sight of a sweat-soaked Self Made Man in running vest and shorts isn’t bad enough, those unfortunate enough to come across me training for the Great North Run are unhappily confronted by someone in a crazy world of his own.

With just three weeks to go before I compete in my first half-marathon for more than two decades, I’ve been clocking up the miles in recent days with the assistance of my trusty iPod cranked up to maximum volume.

Trust me, when you’ve laboured for almost two hours and you’re still a mile or two away from home, only grim determination, madness and music keeps you going.

When madness and music combine, they produce some disturbing results as those who saw me running through Gosforth Park last Sunday will no doubt testify.

In my defence, can I say this. Rock music is a wonderful way to keep in rhythm with AC/DC, for example,  the ideal aural accompaniment to road-running with its relentless 4/4 beat.

But not everything on my iPod is designed to aid jogging efficiency - if such a term can be applied to a 40-something fighting a losing battle to achieve his goal of breaking two hours on the big day itself.

After 10 miles or so, I’m well on the way to delirium and if not quite hallucinating, certainly vulnerable to the music blasting my brain.

So let me say this. Pink Floyd’s trippy classic GGITS from Dark Side Of the Moon with its high-pitched wailing and Zeppelin’s Dazed And Confused with its psychedelic interludes are hardly conducive to sensible jogging.

Indeed, I probably looked like some demented escapee as mind and body conspired to produce a quite frightening spectacle.

Similarly, while Queen’s Don’t Stop Me Now possesses the perfect beat for such an exercise, too close an interpretation of the music and Freddy Mercury’s singing can lead to rather camp results.

And I’d probably be risking arrest if I listened to Whitesnake’s Lie Down, I Think I Love You, AC/DC’s Let Me Put My Love Into You or Get It Up by Aerosmith!

The iPod has become as essential a piece of equipment as my trainers as I prepare for the September 20 event, especially since my training partner Vicki suffered a calf strain, forcing me to go it alone on the roads around Gosforth, Fenham and Jesmond.

Indeed, just like I’d never head for the gym without it, I cannot envisage running on my own without my musical companion.

But the North East sporting public can sleep easily. I’ll be dispensing with the iPod when I line up on Claremont Road later this month.

So you’ll be spared one of the most bizarre sporting sights since Eddie The Eagle decided he could ski-jump.

Ian Murtagh

August 28, 2009

My best mate John is not big on his music but he loves rock n’ roll. That’s rock n’ roll as in Fats Domino, Eddie Cochrane, Buddy Holly and Jerry Lee Lewis.

Back in our teenage years, he used to attempt to pull the birds by doing a spot of jiving on the dancefloor. He wasn’t bad actually. Though from what I can recall he pulled more muscles than girls with his gyrating.

There was a group of us who hung out, going to pubs, playing sport, going to football games - all the things you’d expect a bunch of 17 and 18-year-old lads to do.

But John (God bless his short back and sides) never came to Friday nights at the Mayfair with the rest of us and never attended gigs. John loved his real ale, had a mean left foot on the football pitch, a wonderful cover drive in cricket and had the unfortunate habit of sounding like Basil Fawlty when he chatted up the opposite sex. Musically, however, we considered him a freak.

There was one day when he proudly announced he would be going to the Mayfair that particular Friday because Jerry Lee Lewis was in town. And Jerry Lee was John’s all-time favourite artist.

We all laughed because Jerry Lee Lewis was so 1950s. “You’ll be the youngest there,’” we told him. “The rest of the audience will all be old men.”

“So I suppose that means none of you want this spare ticket?” he asked us. None of us did although he did eventually manage to persuade one of his school mates to accompany him to the gig.

As a matter of fact, we were spot-on about the make-up of the audience, not that it prevented John having a great night. But I recalled that story just the other day when talking to one of my sons (No. 2)  about why he’s no longer interested in going to the same gigs as his Dad.

He likes the music. Or some of it at least. The trouble is he thinks it’s tremendously uncool to watch a bunch of guys ‘even older than you, Dad’ trying to turn back time.

And in a way he is right. Most bands I see in concert were around in the 70s and their members are all pushing 60. In other words, they are the Jerry Lee Lewises of the 21st century. I’d imagine most of us have influenced our offspring’s musical tastes to some degree but are we expecting too much to demand complete devotion?

How many of us, when we were teenagers, listened to our parents’ music? Not too many. Yet here we are three decades on and we’re expecting our kids to do what we refused to do. Naturally I would argue that the big difference is that we, unlike them, are fortunate enough to love the greatest music ever written.

But then I would, wouldn’t I?

My eldest son still attends quite a few gigs, as does a mate of his whose father is also a good friend of mine. They thoroughly enjoy them and certainly don’t stand out like sore thumbs.  In fact, there seem to be an increasing number of teenage lads at classic rock concerts these days.

Just don’t tell them what we used to tell Jerry Lee Lewis-loving John all those years ago.

Ian Murtagh

August 21, 2009

My mate Niall was feeling rather pleased with himself after filing his copy on Wolves’ home defeat against West Ham for Monday’s paper.

Niall, for his sins, is a Wolves fan. Musically too, he’s a miscreant and so Robert Plant’s appearance on the Molineux pitch ahead of his favourite team’s Premier League opener, did not particularly excite my fellow scribe.

It did, however, provide inspiration for his subsequent match report - or so he thought!

He rang me the following day to read out his intro: “It wasn’t so much a Stairway To Heaven for Robert Plant as a Stairway to Hell as his beloved Wolves lost…………”

I pretended to be impressed though Niall probably knows me well enough to realise I was just being polite. And the reason for my lack of enthusiasm at his prose? I’d just read a couple of remarkably similar paragraphs in that day’s Sunday newspapers.

If too much knowledge is a dangerous thing, too little has its equally hazardous pitfalls and predictability and duplicity are just two of them.

So throw into the mix a sports journalist with a limited knowledge of Led Zeppelin and a subject matter crying out for a little bit of wordsplay and the result is the inevitable, well-worn Stairway analogy.

Sorry Niall but if I’d been at Molineux, I’d have been far more imaginative.

How about a Communications Breakdown in the home defence? Or perhaps Good Times, Bad Times when comparing the euphoria of promotion with the harsh realities of top flight football.

Were Wolves Dazed and Confused once the Hammers doubled their lead? And instead of hosting a Celebration Day, the opening day of the campaign proved a Heartbreaker for Wolves fans.

Just like during his days at Sunderland, manager Mick McCarthy was feeling Sick Again after enduring yet another Premiership defeat though no doubt he washed away his disappointing by going Out On The Tiles on Saturday night.

Every tabloid journalist likes a good pun but if you’re going to indulge in such literary tomfoolery, it’s recommended to be armed with sufficient material.

Just imagine the fun I’d have if AC/DC’s Brian Johnson was introduced on to the pitch at St James’s Park. “The opposition were Thunderstruck by the ferocity of Newcastle’s play” or if we exit our fantasy world and deal with the here and now, It’s a Long Way To The To Top for the relegated team.

Who’d want to be a Fly On the Wall in the home dressing room after a poor first half display to hear Chris Hughton telling his players that their fancy football had been A Touch Too Much and ordering them to adopt a long ball approach with the battlecry Let’s Get It Up?

I could go on and on.

People within the game are wary of reporters and their capacity for mischief-making as this true story illustrates. Back in 1997, Sunderland chairman Bob Murray invited Status Quo to play on the night of the Stadium of Light’s official opening ahead of a friendly against Ajax.

It was quite a coup for Murray who was looking forward to seeing a sell-out crowd inside the ground despite the club’s relegation three months earlier. On the day of the big game, however, Murray was told that one of Quo’s biggest hits was a song called Down, Down. He knew what would happen if they played it and so he requested it be taken off their setlist.

I can guarantee that over the next nine months, there will be countless musical references, song titles and recording puns in match reports. And if UB40 ever visit a North East ground, it will be yours truly and not Niall scratching around. While my esteemed colleague will dip into his vast knowledge of all things reggae, I’ll frantically be trying to work out a connection between football and Red, Red Wine!

Ian Murtagh

August 14, 2009

Probably the toughest admission a music fan can make is to concede that a band he adores has released a dud album.

For rock fans, it’s even harder because as a genre, we’re renowned for our loyalty to a particular artist. Indeed, I would imagine that a sizeable proportion of visitors to this website will have virtually everything ever released by their favourite groups.

Of course, that doesn’t mean each individual release is as good as its predecessor. Far from it in many cases.

In the past few weeks, holidays have allowed me to listen to many, many hours of music and I’ve carried out my own critical reassessment of my collection.

And in many instances, I’ve revised my opinion of several albums which I hadn’t listened to in ages. Some sound better than ever, others have lost their spark.

Taking ten bands or artists of whom I’ve got most of their releases, here’s Self Made Man’s 21st Century Breakdown.

AC/DC: Black Ice will undoubtedly pass the test of time in a way Stiff Upper Lip probably doesn’t. Too many releases by the Aussie rockers - Razor’s Edge being another classic example - open in spectacular fashion only to fade away with every track.  Powerage remains their most underrated album and Blow Up Your Video their most disappointing. Apart from having the most outdated title in the history of rock music, the production is horribly tinny and bar Heatseeker, its songs lack energy, passion and melody.

Aerosmith: The Toxic Twins reinvented themselves into commercial giants without sacrificing their early roots. Consequently, if you asked me to name my top four albums, two would come from before 1980 - Rocks and Toys In The Attic - and two from post 1985 - Pump and Get A Grip. The drug-fuelled years in between were arguably their least productive yet I still enjoy Night In The Ruts and Rock In A Hard Place despite the two of them being panned by critics then and now. In contrast, I’ve gone right off Just Push Play even though I hailed it as a classic after its release.

UFO: Fans of the Chapman era are disappointeded that the band refuse to play anything from that period in their live set despite the albums being re-released earlier this year. No Place To Run, The Wild, The Willing and The Innocent sound as good now as they did back then though most fans of the band would place them below Lights Out and Obsession in the pecking order. Of their more recent releases, I’m probably not alone in dismissing Sharks and Covenant from Michael Schenker’s last fling as filler material, easily eclipsed by the three albums recorded with his successor Vinnie Moore.

Scorpions: The trilogy recorded between 1979 and 1982 - Lovedrive, Animal Magentism and Blackout - remain my personal faves though the more modern Unbreakable and Humanity Hour One are stunning returns to form after the experimental mishmash that was Eye To Eye. Face The Heat, released as their US popularity started to wane, sounds like a band searching - and failing - to find a new direction.

Neil Young: No artist has released such a rollercoaster of material. I own over 30 albums by the Canadian rocker and not one of them’s a dud. That’s because his output in the 80s - known as the Geffen Era - is so bad, I didn’t even buy the stuff. I can think of at least six albums which are vying for a place in my top 20 albums of all time with On The Beach, After the Goldrush and Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere certain inclusions. Living With War, released as an anti-Iraq album four years ago, was a rushed affair and is the album I probably listen to least these days.

Led Zeppelin: When the rock legends bowed out with In Through The Outdoor, critics claimed they’d ran out of steam and the album is still regarded as their poorest. I disasgree. I’ve always liked the album because it includes In The Evening and All of My Love - two of my favourite Zep tracks. Listening to it again recently, I’m Gonna Crawl and even Carouselambra still sound good. I can even forgive them Hot Dog. And please don’t ask me to name a bad Zeppelin album because they didn’t release one though new fans would be mad to buy the Song Remains the Same soundrack in preference to the more recently released How The West Was Won.

Pink Floyd: Like Zeppelin, PF did not release a bad album. A Momentary Lapse of Reason is inconsistent with a couple of dud tracks while Animals and The Final Cut are not ones for melody seekers. The Wall does contain some filler material as does Meddle. Indeed, describing the woeful Seamus as filler is probably defammatory to anything else labelled filler. But let’s face it, any album which contains the mesmerising Echoes and One of These Days has to be an album worth owning.

REM: Yes, yes, Automatic For People  is a must- have as is Document from the band’s pre-Warner era. But some of us actually prefer the massively underrated New Adventures in Hi-Fi. Critics claim that REM’s creative juices dried up once they were hailed as the best band in the world. In my opinion, Up and Reveal aren’t as bad as some suggest, Around the Sun undoubtedly is while the recently released Accelerate isn’t quite as good as I hoped it would be.

Whitesnake: OK, 1987 is a wonderful album and last year’s Good To Be Bad is a fine effort from a band who hadn’t released any new material for a decade. But ask anyone over 40 to name David Coverdale’s best efforts and they’ll go for stuff he wrote before becoming all-Americanised. Ready and Willing, Lovehunter and Come n’ Get it are hot stuff. And anyone who still believes they notched up a gear on crossing the Atlantic need only listen to the two live albums for proof that they are wrong. Live In The Heart of The City is hard rock heaven, Live  In Blues, released more than 20 years later is heavy metal dross.

Rush: Like AC/DC’s Black Ice, their latest album Snakes and Arrows will undoubtedly stand the test of time which is more than can be said for Vapor Trails. The production is fuzzy and the songwriting uninspired. The same could be said for its predecessor Test For Echo despite the merits of the title track and Driven. Rush’s output between 1978 and 1981 (From 2112 to Moving Pictures) remains their best and most popular. But of their later releases, Counterparts and Roll The Bones still sound as fresh today as they did on their release. The trilogy of Grace Under Pressure, Hold Your Fire and Power Windows include some excellent songs but are tainted by that awful 1980s production feel.

Ian Murtagh

July 17, 2009

“Put something else on,” or “Turn the volume down,” or even “If you don’t switch that off, I’ll bloody…….” We’ve all had it on long car trips, haven’t we?

As the one who tends to do 99 per cent of the driving in my family, I’ve always adhered to the rule that he holds the steering wheel chooses the music. But unfortunately, it isn’t always as simple as that.

The Self Made family are heading for the south of France soon and inevitably, the debate is already raging about in-car entertainment.

With DAB radio, an iPod connection, CD facility and portable DVD for those in the back, we certainly won’t be starved of choice but that’s where the problems start. If I let the kids watch Band Of Brothers for the 112th time, I’ll have nothing to listen to. If they let me listen to Planet Rock, the squabbling will start behind me.

And even if we collectively agree on sticking on the iPod, little Michael will insist he repeatedly plays Guns n’ Roses’ Sweet Child O’ Mine from Newcastle to Dover and then Paradise City between Calais and Provence. But there is a solution - play The Who, the one band that manages to unite this eclectic family.

I don’t know what it is about The Who but I’ve never come across anyone who dislikes them. Years ago, it was cool for rockers and mods to be fans of the band. OK, they preferred My Generation while we rockers opted for Won’t Get Fooled Again as our favourite Who song. No matter, everyone liked The Who.

And it’s the same 30 years on. Even Sue, whose musical tastes tend to be soul and motown won’t complain if we’re bombing down the motorway with  Roger Daltrey’s voice and Pete Townsend’s power chords ringing in our ears.

I’ve got mates who swear blind they hate rock music but make an exception of The Who. And when I’ve seen the band in concert, the audience has confirmed my view that they gather support from virtually every musical genre.

Going back to our forthcoming car journey, I must admit that listening to cricket on the radio is something I find just as pleasurable as having Led Zeppelin’s Kashmir or Pink Fioyd’s Comfortably Numb caressing my ear drums.

If Nazareth’s Broken Down Angel was the song that launched my love of rock music as a nine-year-old back in 1973, the dulcid tones of John Arlott commentating on England versus West Indies that summer, sparked an equally enduring love affair.

Brian Johnson and Arlott have moved on to cricket’s eternal pavilion as has Bill Frindall, the much-loved scorer whose death earlier this year robbed Test Match Special of its most quintessential character. But Henry Blofeld, Jonathan Agnew and company continue to serve the sporting public splendidly.

Four years ago on the last occasion I took my own car to France, the Second Test of the 2005 Ashes series provided the aural backdrop to our journey home.

And I can still recall exactly where I was on the motorway when Andrew Flintoff reached his half century and when Steve Harmison clean bowled Michael Clarke with that stunning slow ball. So there you have it, kids, Dad’s decided. In the interests of family harmony, it’s The Who between Tyneside and Watford Gap, then maybe, just maybe, I’ll let you watch a DVD as I negotiate the M25.

But after the Dartford Tunnel and all the way to our final destination, it’s going to be - reception permitting - cricket, lovely cricket.

Ian Murtagh

July 10, 2009

It’s payback time after a summer of indulgence.

Return flight to Dublin, overnight stop in the Irish capital, another hotel bill in Glasgow - and that’s not to mention the cost of concert tickets.

AC/DC £55, Neil Young 70 Euros, UFO another 25 quid, Joe Bonamassa £20. My beloved wife’s been totting up the bill and I’ll admit it, indulging my love of rock music is not cheap.

“But darling, I didn’t buy a tour T-shirt at any of the gigs,’” I protested in pitiful self-defence. And I shared the petrol costs for AC/DC and the tour programme only cost me a fiver.”

All true though I must admit to one or two white lies when the next item was read off the charge sheet. “And what about all the pints of beer you bought at all those concerts?” came the next query. Unfortunately (for me), Sue knew how much a pint of Guiness cost in Dublin - a whopping five euros. What she didn’t know was how many I drank in the four hours leading up to the Neil Young concert at the O2.

Had I said I’d bought three or four, she might have believed me but my instinctive response was so blatantly inaccurate, she knew I was hiding a dark, costly secret.

“I only had a couple,” said I, realising I sounded about as convincing as a Member of Parliament apologising for a dodgy expenses claim. And it was the same last week on my return from Glasgow – though the fact I happened to be staying at the only Scottish hotel which shut its bar at 11pm meant my answer was slightly more accurate on this occasion.

But the serious point here is that I’ve probably spent more money on just myself over the past few weeks than at any time in our marriage. And Sue, bless her, has not tried to stop me. She knew how much I wanted to - actually make that ‘needed to’ – see AC/DC one last time and when an Irish mate told me he could get his hands on two Neil Young tickets in his native Dublin, she gave me the green light. (I still haven’t told her the plane tickets cost three times as much as we initially thought!!)

Of course, there has to be a limit to my spending plans and I realised I’d be pushing it too far had I sought tickets for Bruce Springsteen and U2. And I’ve been an exceptionally good boy when it comes to CDs. I haven’t bought one for at least three weeks which must be some sort of personal record.

I appreciate I spend a lot more of our spare cash on personal leisure than Sue and know I’m blessed in having such an understanding, tolerant, easy-going wife. Trying to justify my expenditure in relation to hers, however, is not the wisest thing I’ve ever done.

“What do you mean I spend too much on booze,” I once asked before adding, foolishly, “it doesn’t cost as much as that kitchen extension I bought you or the new conservatory”.

And as for new clothes and make-up, I won’t go there, realising that such items are the female equivalents of alcohol and CDs. In other words, they are essentials.

We’ve recently refurbished our kitchen (for the third time in seven years for heaven’s sake!!) and on a recent trip to IKEA, I realised that had the phrase ‘no, you can’t have that, it’s too expensive’ passed my lips, my next trip might have been to the divorce courts.

I’m hoping Sue won’t read this article because she’ll realise that her financial estimate of £200 for my summer of indulgence was on the conservative side.

But if she does, I’ll say this: ‘thanks darling, it’s very much appreciated’.
And I suspect I’m not the only rock fan who owes his other half a huge debt of gratitude this summer!

Ian Murtagh

July 3, 2009

Warning to concert-goers. Don’t take expensive sunglasses to gigs and definitely don’t wear flip-flops.

Especially if you’re 40-something and daft enough to venture into the mosh pit for possible the last-ever UK sighting of the greatest rock n’roll band on the planet.

It was a beautiful day in Glasgow on Tuesday as we sat outside our hotel supping our pints in readiness for AC/DC. Far too good in fact for long trousers, socks and shoes.

So Self Made Man headed for Hampden Park in minimalist attire - T-shirt, shorts and sandals with sunglasses and a liberal smattering of factor 15 for protection.

Two hours later as we relaxed in a beer garden outside a pub I’d regularly frequented before watching Celtic in Scottish Cup finals, my decision seemed vindicated. I was the coolest dude around - in both senses!

And as I lay sprawled on the boarding protecting the Hampden pitch just yards from the front of the stage, listening to Chickenfoot on my iPod at around 5.45pm, I swear I could have been relaxing on a Turkish beach. Not even the shame of having to drink lager could upset me.

Having to watch a painful set by the musically-challenged Subways briefly interrupted my utopia, especially since they’d been ridiculously placed above The Answer as main support band.

Still, full marks to the singer who, realising the band’s own contribution would struggle to earn applause from the rapidly filling-up arena, was clever enough to mention AC/DC 467 times ensuring The Subways raised a cheer approximately 466 times more than they deserved.

By now of course, the sunbathing had ceased and thankfully, so had the visits to the gents. Satisfied my bladder was sufficiently empty to survive the next three hours or so, it was time to stand firm, cold staring anyone who dared to push in front of us while at the same time, politely, discreetly, surreptitiously edging our own way forward.

Then at 8.36, all hell broke loose as a Rock n’ Roll train careered out of control - and so did everyone around me.

Suddenly Steve and I found ourselves thrust several yards forward and to our left. Moments earlier, we were congratulating ourselves at occupying one of the best vantage points in the stadium.

Now we had THE best and as Brian Johnson and Angus Young ventured down the walkway for the first time it was as if the two of them were strolling through our own living rooms.

But perfection invariably comes at a price as I became a victim of the madness swirling all around. Not only had my sunglasses slipped off, never to be seen again, I lost my left flip-flop - and the way things were going with everyone within two metres of me training vigorously for the World Po-going Championships, I was well on my way to losing my toes too.

Fortunately, I managed to retrieve the said item by performing the sort of reckless slide-tackle which earned me red cards during my football career and with owner and flip-flop happily reunited, I realised hell ain’t such a bad place to be after all.

To say AC/DC played a blinder’s a bit like describing Roger Federer as a decent tennis player or Bobby Robson as a likeable human being. It’s accurate but doesn’t come close to capturing what was a very special occasion indeed.

Personal highlights were Big Jack,  Shot Down In Flames, You Shook Me All Night Long, Let There Be Rock and Highway To Hell. I could go on.

But above all, it was the sight and sounds of a band as good now, perhaps even better than they were two decades ago which made this such a night to remember.

So close were we to the action, my mate Steve now boasts a collection of photographs a professional snapper would proudly call his own. Hopefully, I’ll persuade him to stick a few on this website in the next few days.

A special word of praise for the stewards who spent most of the night handing out glasses of water to parched fans and also to those who selflessly passed the plastic cups over their own heads to members of the audience in more need of refreshment.

The only downside to the night was missing the last train back to the hotel, having to fork out almost £20 on a taxi and then discovering that we were staying in the only hostelry north of Hadrians Wall which shuts at 11.

Now that’s what I call a Dirty Deed Done Dirt Cheap.

Ian Murtagh

June 26, 2009

I’d be very surprised if too many regular readers of this blog would call themselves Michael Jackson devotees.

But I’d be considerably less surprised if they had at least one of his albums in their record collection.

I’ve been angered by the deification of the self-titled King of Pop in the hours since his untimely death. To put it mildly, Jackson was a deeply flawed character with a private life which raised many uncomfortable questions.

But there’s no doubt that in the mid-eighties with the release of Off The Wall and more particularly Thriller and Bad, his music transcended genres.

Songs such as Billie Jean, Thriller and Beat It from the biggest-selling album of all-time were a spectacular fusion of funk, soul, rock and pop and held universal appeal.

Beat It, for example, may have been a typical disco track but it boasted a quite stunning guitar solo by Eddie Van Halen, who offered his serviices for free as a favour to Jackson’s producer Quincy Jones.

Many argue that it was Jones and not Jackson who was the musical genius and it was undoubtedly the former who engineered the singer’s transformation from black soul artist to international superstar with crossover appeal.

His decision to have Van Halen - then arguably America’s most famous guitarist, on the record ensured that Jackson became familiar with the rock band’s mostly white fans. But it was the video Thriller for which Jackson will undoubtedly be best remembered. Those too young to remember its initial release can never quite understand its impact.

Back in the early 80s, the video age was at the embryonic stage. Late night television invariably meant Open University. And Channel Four was a new TV station struggling for an audience. Thriller changed all that.

I can still recall the night the video was screened for the first time. Pubs emptied long before closing time as we all headed back home to watch this much-hyped mini-film which had been heavily advertised on Channel Four and in the newspapers for days.

We weren’t disappointed. The music in its own right was excellent. The video took the breath away. None of us had ever seen anything quite like it.

Jackson had rewritten the rules and suddenly, to have a hit record, it became almost a pre-requisite to spend as much money on the video production as the song.

I won’t be mourning Jackson’s death and memories of the man will forever be tainted by his freakish, some would say, dubious lifestyle.

But like it was for millions of others around the world, the release of the Thriller video was quite a musical moment in my life.

Ian Murtagh

June 19, 2009

Ask sports fans to compile their greatest-ever line-ups and they’ll spend hours in the pub mulling over the contenders.

For followers of Manchester United, who would play on the right wing. Beckham or Ronaldo? And is it Charlton or Cantona playing just behind Denis Law and George Best?

Liverpool supporters would no doubt accomodate Torres, Rush, Dalglish and Gerrard in the same side but does that mean omitting Souness or Callaghan?

Imagine a British and Irish Lions XV with JPR  Williams at full-back, Irish centres Brian O’Driscoll and Mike Gibson as a combination, Gareth Edwards at scum half feeding a pack which included Martin Johnson, Willie John McBride and Mervyn Davies.

Or a West Indies line-up captained by Garfield Soberts with Viv Richards and Brian Lara at three and four and a bowling attack featuring Malcolm Marshall, Joel Garner and Curtley Ambrose?

Such dreams teams remain exactly that - the stuff of fantasy.

But in music, it’s different because it’s still possible to hear the greatest songs of a band in one package. Anyone lucky enough to attend the Led Zeppelin gig at the O2 18 months ago would have headed there expecting to hear the band play Stairway to Heaven, Kashmir, Rock and Roll and Black Dog.

They weren’t disappointed with Zeppelin sticking largely to what can loosely be described as a `best of’ set list. Now that doesn’t present a problem for a band who hadn’t played a major gig for so long but what about bands who hit the road every two or three years?

UFO’s current UK tour is proving to be a resounding success yet debate rages on among fans about their reluctance to deviate from a set-list whose core has remained largely unchanged for three decades.

But to use a sporting analogy again, you wouldn’t pick an all-time Celtic XI without the names of Jimmy Johnstone, Kenny Dalglish, Henrik Larsson and Billy McNeil starring, would you?

So aren’t UFO doing the obvious thing by airing so many songs from Strangers In The Night, widely recognised as their definitive album and one of the best live albums in rock history?

However, there are alternative routes to go down - though all of them carry risks. Rush bravely chose to play eight tracks from their excellent Snakes And Arrows on their most recent tour. The benefits were obvious. Their decision proved the perfect marketing tool for the studio album and also allowed them to release a live album very different from their previous ones.

But their adventure came at a price. No 2112, no Xanadu and no Closer To The Heart.

No problem for those of us who’d see Rush on their previous UK tour four years earlier but for Newcastle patrons, it was their first appearance in the region since 1980. Like so many concert-goers, the vast majority at the Metro Arena two years ago cheered the oldies far louder than they did the newies. Indeed, the clapometer want into overdrive when they played Spirit of Radio, Tom Sawyer and YYZ – all written more than 25 years ago.

I notice Aerosmith have decided to play either Toys In The Attic or Rocks –  their two classic albums from the mid-70s - in their entirety on their forthcoming US tour.

It’s a ploy more and more bands are employing and it’s one I personally think can provide the perfect balance in a set list if it’s sandwiched in between a handful of new tracks and their more popular songs from other albums.

Deep Purple tried it on their last tour, announcing they intended to play the legendary Machine Head in its entirety. They did - but only in Newcastle on the opening night of the tour. Personally, I thought it worked tremendously well but the band obviously didn’t, abandoning the experiment the following night, claiming the segueing didn’t work.

AC/DC’s set list for their current tour is probably as balanced as a band with such a rich history can achieve. Of the 19 songs played, eight are from the Bon Scott era 1974-80, five from the eighties with Brian Johnson
on vocals,  just one from the less productive 90s and five from last year’s Black Ice.

But I do think ‘the classic album solution’ is the way forward for bands with such heavy catalogues. Meatloaf did it by confining his set list to the Bat Out of Hell trilogy and the gig I attended ( and I’m aware his subsequent night in Newcastle was a disaster) was arguably my favourite concert of 2007.

Imagine a reformed Bad Company hanging their gig on Straight Shooter, Whitesnake playing Come N’ Get It in its entirety or Rush dusting down Hemispheres. Or even UFO digging out one of their 80s classic such as No Place To Run or The Wild, The Willing and The Innocent!

Now that last scenario really does belong in the realms of fantasy!

Ian Murtagh

June 12, 2009

Anyone over 35 who lived on Tyneside in the 70s and early 80s will remember the Handyside Arcade, which was demolished about  20 years ago to make way for Eldon Garden.

And those who were rock fans at the time will recall with particular fondness, the shop which sold posters. The Handyside was an arcade ‘of its time.’  It boasted ‘arty’ shops rather than ‘state of the art’ facilities.

From memory, I can recall a pet shop, a card shop and two or three shops which sold what could loosely be described as ‘bric-a-brac.’ Punks, mods and the disco fraternity dubbed the Handyside a hippy drop-in centre and I suppose they did have a point with the smells from joss-sticks, musk and other oriential odours filling the air.

Outside the poster shop was where everyone would congregate each Saturday morning. We’d all pop in for a quick browse, thumb our way through the posters for the umpteenth time and check out the second hand LPs before heading back outside.

Once in a while, we would make a purchase. In fact, my mates, former girlfriends and I all had bedrooms plastered with posters from there. And trust me, they don’t do posters today like they used to.

Of course, there were the iconic ones such as the female tennis player with the delightful bum, famous shots of Jim Morrison and Che Guevara, eyecatching photos of Debbie Harry, Kate Bush, Stevie Nicks and even Sally James of TISWAS fame.

And then there were the multi-coloured psychodelic posters, which I was convinced were designed with the sole purpose of convincing the older generation all of us were living on a parallel universe.

But the most extensive range of posters were of rock bands whose image lent itself to some spectacular efforts. To this day, I can still visualise most of them.

Pride of place on my bedroom wall was a Led Zeppelin poster featuring Robert Plant and Jimmy Page in the foreground. They used to say that Plant was someone every teenage boy wanted to be and every teenage girl wanted to be with.

With his lion mane, bare chest and tight jeans, it was not difficult to understand his appeal to the opposite sex. Page was a more mystical figure. The poster I owned had him in sunglasses, cigarette hanging out of his mouth, a German Second World War hat and of course his Les Paul hanging off him at the perfect angle.

Then there was my Michael Schenker poster with the UFO axeman posing aggressively with his famous Flying V pointing  towards the lens and his facial features poking through his blond, semi-permed hair.

Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow provided ample material for posters with their neon-lighted show though easily the most popular poster was the one of the guitarist smashing his Stat on stage before setting it alight.

Such 70s bands were often ridiculed for their overblown state shows and self-indulgent acts but to those who idolised them, these images burn as brightly today as they did back then. There’s been some wonderful music released in the three decades since but few bands have matched the photogenic glamour of classic rock.

And even if the Handyside Arcade was around today, it’s highly unlikely a poster shop would appeal quite so fervently to today’s teenagers.

Ian Murtagh

June 5, 2009

I’ve been accused of being a music bigot. And I’d guess that over the years, those reading this have been subjected to the same slur.

The charge was hurled at me last week when two of my mates were talking about their plans to see Dizzee Rascal at the Quayside Festival. I told them I’d rather listen to the mother-in-law to which they claimed I was blinkered and narrow-minded.

Of course, I defended myself vigorously because I am rather proud of my eclectic tastes. And I presented what I would consider to be a winning argument.

“I like all kinds of music,” I declared. “Providing it is good.”

And there lies the crux of the musical matter.

You see I can’t stand hip-hop and garage. Soul and reggae, I can take or leave while manufactured pop leaves me cold. Yet with my dying breath, I would argue that I’ve got catholic tastes. For heaven’s sake, anyone with 29 Neil Young albums from five decades can’t be that narrow.

And while I would acknowledge (with pride) that a sizeable chunk of my CD collection hails from the 70s, I’ve got hundreds of albums later decades right up to the present day.

If proof were needed of my eclectism, may I present to you my own music library. Filed under the letter F, I have albums by The Feeling, Fleetwood Mac, Franz Ferdinand , Free and the Fleet Foxes, only one of which would fall under the category my accusers say I’m restricted to.

And what about my collection of K bands which has rapidly expanded this century. Until 2001, I had just two albums - both by Paul Kossoff. Since then, I’ve bought every album released by Mark Knopfler, the Kaiser Chiefs, Kings of Leon, the Killers and Kasabian.

Next week, Kasbaian’s new album will be arriving in the post along with the latest release from UFO plus Chickenfoot’s eagerly anticipated first effort.

Looking through my iTunes library, 587 albums are classed as rock, 79 as metal, 119 as alternative and 62 as blues. Of the remaining 300 or so, they fit into various genres including pop, easy listening, folk, country. Oh yes and there are one or two hip-hop gatecrashers, courtesy of my wife!!

I’d defy anyone to take a look at my collection and not find at least a couple of dozen albums they’d enjoy. So why is it rock fans like you and me tend to be branded as one-trick musical ponies? I have a theory.

I believe followers of rock music tend to be more devoted, more passionate and more interested in our music than fans of rival genres. We tend to go to more gigs, read up more material (don’t forget Classic Rock has more readers than any other music publication) and generally have larger record collections.

Of course, I’ve got my own blind spots such as hip-hop but few can plead not guilty to the charge of turning their backs on at least one brand of music. Hasn’t a publication such as NME made a living berating anything resembling hard rock?

For the record,  I popped round to see one of the guys who had go at me for my ‘narrow tastes’ the other day and asked to see his own music library.

It consisted of 27 CDs, 14 cassettes and a couple of hundred LPs gathering dust on the shelves. And Radio One was playing in the background.

The case of the defence rests, My’Lud.

Ian Murtagh

May 29, 2009

It was back in the summer of 1980 and a group of teenagers and 20-somethings were playing cricket on a beautifully sunny day.

And if the groundsman of Belsay CC, a few miles outside Ponteland, is reading this, we’re sorry for trespassing. For three or four years, we’d set off into rural Northumberland in search of a deserted cricket pitch before putting down stumps and having a game.

Then in between innings, we’d nip off to the nearest pub for lunch. This 1980 trip was the best of the lost and not just because of the 42 runs and two wickets I managed to get. Nor was it anything to do with the excellent real ale in the Highlander, a couple of miles north of Belsay.

No, what made this particular day stand out was the mystery motor-cyclist who interrupted play. Initially, it wasn’t the helmet clad rider but his machine which captured out attention. A brand new Harley-Davidson.

Standing at mid-wicket, it was Snooky who took the unilateral decision to take a drinks break (and anyone who knows Snooky will appreciate that comment!) ‘Nice bike, Mister, how long have you had it,’ he asked.

‘Not long,” came the reply. ‘I’ve come into a bit of money and decided to splash out. I’ve wanted one since I was a nipper’.’

Underneath the helmet, the gruff Geordie voice sounded familiar. And then he took it off. None other than Brian Johnson of AC/DC, who’d joined the Aussie rockers a few months earlier following the death of Bon Scott.

Now I could tell you that Johnno joined in our game, hit six 6s, took a hat-trick and then let us all have a go of his bike before we all retired to the Highlander when he stuck 20 quid behind the bar and announced the drinks were on him.

But that would be stretching the truth a little too far.

What I will say is that having recalled that chance meeting with Mike (wicket-keeper extraordinaire that day), we remember a bloke who was friendly, engaging and willing to chat to a group of kids for well over 20 minutes. He talked about Back In Black, which was on its way to becoming the biggest selling rock album of all time, and told us how Angus and Malcolm Young had made him so welcome.

We pleaded with him to invest his new-found wealth in cash-strapped Newcastle United (some things never change) and yes, we probably did ask if he fancied joining in.

The point is that Brian Johnson the man did not shatter our illusions and isn’t it great when your rock heroes turn out to be as good as you want them to be?

I know someone who’s now in his 50s who was in Jesmond Dene with his parents back in the early 70s, when he came across a familiar figure. It was Robert Plant, who had decided to warm up for that night’s gig with Led Zeppelin at the City Hall with a stroll around one of Newcastle’s premier beauty spots.

My friend tentatively approached him and Plant could not have been happier to talk, even apologising that he did not have any spare tickets on him.

Of course, our musical idols don’t always turn out the way we want them to. A porter I knew at a posh Tyneside hotel told me some horror stories about some of the biggest names in music. He still can’t forgive the pop star who tipped him with a miserly 10 pence for taking all his luggage to his room.

No names of course but I don’t think you’ll ever hear Going Underground or Eton Rifles on the former porter’s car stereo.

Ian Murtagh

May 22, 2009

I lent a mate of mine Neil Young’s new album Fork In The Road only for him to return it a few days later declaring he didn’t like it.

Then he came back to me last week claiming he did like it after all. In fact, he loved it so much he went out and bought his own copy. So why the U-turn? It was all about how he listened to the album.

At first, he explained, he’d stuck it on in the house while he was pottering about and couldn’t really get into it. Being a big Neil Young fan himself, he then gave it a second chance, listening to it through headphones that evening, washed down by a few glasses of red wine.

Still he didn’t get it.

Then Eureka!. He gave it another try but this time he played in through his car stereo system as he sped down the motorway and everything fell into place (considering Young’s latest release is about his beloved 1959 Lincoln Continental, that’s appropriate!).

It’s an illuminating tale because while it’s often said that there is music for every occasion, we don’t often consider how the environment can play a significant role too.

Not surprisingly rock music is often described as ‘driving music’ and is in its element ‘on the road’.

A couple of years ago, Planet Rock surveyed its listeners to find out the perfect songs to listen to behind the wheel and were inundated with countless entries, ranging from the obvious like Deep Purple’s Highway Star and Silver Machine by Hawkind to more obscure tracks.

All of us compartmentalise our own music in that there are some bands you’ll only listen to at certain times and in certain situations while others, you’d put on in very different circumstances.

Take myself for instance. When I’m in the gym or out jogging, I’ll invariably listen to the heavier stuff in my collection. I find anything by bands like AC/DC, Aerosmith, UFO, Whitesnake or Deep Purple or perfect for keeping energy levels high.

At home, when I just want to relax, Pink Floyd, Eric Clapton, Free or something like The Counting Crows fits the bill. I’ll often listen to the radio or have my iTunes library on shuffle when I’m working and can listen to anything from The Scorpions to Kasabian to Bruce Springsteen.

But there’s one time when no music, however dulcid, however melodic, however quiet will do. And that’s when my sons are revising. They tell me it helps, they tell me I’m a hyprocrite and they tell me music encourages them to work harder and for longer.

But no. I stand firm. At exam time, I belong to the school that say silence is golden.

Ian Murtagh

May 15, 2009

There’s a book waiting to be written telling us how to enjoy the perfect stadium gig.

I’m not volunteering to write it but I’ve got the perfect working title: `The Dark Art of Stadium Gigging.’

For let’s face it, to do everything you want to do, see everything you want to see and drink everything you want to drink, you’ve got to bend the rules a little bit.

I could never be one of those hardy rock fans who manage to find a spot right in front of stage, having stood there, defiantly refusing to budge, for hours on end.

It begs so many questions, not least of which is ‘was it worthwhile?’.

For much as I respect their durability, I’m less impressed by their sobriety and totally mystifed how they can go so long without nature calling. Personally, being a quite demanding sort of guy, I want it all. And that means when I head off to Hampden Park next month to watch AC/DC, I want to drink copious amounts of beer, relieve myself whenever I get the urge and have a great view, ideally centre stage, no more than 20 yards away.

Impossible? Quite possibly - unless, like me, you’re prepared to indulge in a spot of skulduggery. The last time I was in a 50,000 plus crowd for a gig was at Hyde Park Calling two years ago when Aerosmith were the headline act.

I’d managed to get quite close to the stage for The Answer mid-afternoon but not been a big fan of either Jet or Chris Cornell I decided to do some wandering for the next couple of hours. That meant forfeiting my coveted spot.

Skip forward to eight at night and I was on a mission to find a decent viewing spot - not a particularly easy task considering around 49,000 fans stood between me and where I wanted to stand.

A few polite ‘excuse me’s’ proved utterly useless as I barged my way through. In fact, I decided to scupper the good manners approach when one guy replied (quite accurately in fact) ‘why the hell should we let you through when you’ve spent the last few hours at the bar?’.

Time for Plan B to spring into action - and yes, I am ashamed of myself, if you’re asking. “Could you let me past, I’ve got to find my 14-year-old son, who’s on his own up there?”, I said pointing to some imaginary spot near the stage.

Like the Red Sea parting, I was on my way, making at least 50 yards until common decency took over and I decided I couldn’t chance my luck any more. And now for the dastardly art of relieving yourself without losing your precious spot.

For this you need a rainy day and one of those disposable long macs they sell for a couple of quid on such occasions. Without going into any great detail (in case any females are reading this and, if they are, I wouldn’t think this particular information is of any use to you), it’s perfectly possible to do the necessary without anyone noticing or being disturbed.

And the moral of this sordid story is……..

A: If you’re at any festival this summer and some strange guy tells you he’s lost a child and could you please let him through, tell him where to go.

B: Beware of the dirty mac brigade!!

Ian Murtagh

May 8, 2009

One of the most embarrassing spectacles ever witnessed on television was the dance group Legs and Co., dressed up as punks, girating to the sound of Pretty Vacant by the Sex Pistols on Top of the Pops.

But even that farce was topped by their laughable interpretation of Rush’s one and only hit Spirit of Radio which broke into the top 20 a few months before Legs and Co.’s demise in 1981.

Like the more famous Pans People and, briefly, the woeful Ruby Flipper before them, Legs and Co. were a key feature of TOTP in the pre-video age. They usually danced to songs which had shot up the charts by a band or artist, who were unable or unwilling to appear on the show.

Rock fans, like the bands themselves, had a love-hate relationship with the
BBC’s weekly music show. We all grew up tuning in to Top of the Pops every Thursday and for those of us now in our 40s, it’s probably fair to say the seeds for our love of rock music were sown by watching glam bands such as Slade, The Sweet, Wizzard and Roxy Music.

One of the great ironies of the programme is that its famous theme tune was
Whole Lotta Love by Led Zeppelin, who defiantly turned their backs on the
singles market throughout their illustrious career. When, TOTP producers decided on a makeover they chose another rock icon to provide the new theme with Phil Lynott’s Yellow Pearl introducing the show.

Rock fans tended to look down on TOTP and singles in general, claiming it was the album market which really counted. And we’d cite Zeppelin to justify our argument - when the biggest band in the world spurned the trend, wasn’t that proof it lacked integrity and credibility?

Real music fans watched The Old Grey Whistle Test. Yet there was hypocrisy in our habit of turning our noses up at Top Of The Pops. For I can vividly remember the excitement which greeted rumours that AC/DC, Rainbow or Whitesnake were appearing on that night’s programme.

These days, we all have our DVD libraries and can dip in and out of YouTube to watch a band strut their stuff. Back then, however, our first-ever sight of a band was invariably on the maligned TOTP. I recall watching concert footage of Rainbow’s Since You’ve Been Gone and Fool For Your Loving by Whitesnake. They were probably the first times I saw moving pictures of Richie Blackmore and David Coverdale.

But it was the live appearances that stick in the mind, not so much for their
brilliance but for how uncomfortable a lot of bands looked in such an
environment. UFO appeared two or three times but always seemed restricted by the TV studio, small stage and audience of mainly teenage girls, disco-dancing away to a song they’d never heard before and would never hear again.

AC/DC vocalist Bon Scott was a natural in front of the camera and I can still
remember the band appearing on TOTP playing what poignantly proved to be his epitaph Touch Too Much a few weeks before his death. In the 70s, most bands mimed on television and quite a few, not to put too fine a point on it, took the piss.

Nazareth’s Dan McCafferty burst out laughing when he realised he wasn’t in synch with the taped recording of My White Bicyle. And Rod Stewart and The Faces never took themselves seriously when they appeared on the programme, once even inviting DJ John Peel to play along with them.

I gave up on Top Of The Pops many, many years before its eventual demise and like so many teenagers who shared my musical tastes, regularly rubbished it when I did tune in. But let’s admit it, for all the show’s faults, doesn’t it provide us with some of our most enduring adolescent memories?

Ian Murtagh

May 1, 2009

To stand or not to stand, that is the question music fans are pondering these days.

The issue has been the subject of intense debate in football circles for many years and the arguments are very similar.

Basically, the anti-seating, pro-standing brigade among followers of both leisure pursuits insist seats are not conducive to a good atmosphere. Football-wise, the pro-seating, anti-standing mob claim that safety is paramount and following the Hillsborough tragedy 20 years ago, that is the overriding priority.

Thankfully, there has been no Hillsborough-like incidents at concerts in this country though much of that has to do with the size of gigs. For every stadium concert which attracts crowds of over 50,000, there are many, many more which are staged in front of audiences ranging from the hundreds to the thousands.

In Britain and Ireland, fans can choose to sit or stand at many events while if you’re wanting to watch a football match at Premier League or Championship level, there is no choice. So on which side of the fence do I stand….er, or sit?

Right in the middle, in fact. Though I do think that the type of gig one’s attending holds the key.

Having been present at Joe Bonamassa’s quite magnificent gig at Gateshead’s Sage last week and having central seats just three rows from the front, no-one will be surprised to discover that I wouldn’t have swapped my circumstances on the night.

Bonamassa is much more a sonic than a visual experience and indeed, from a personal perspective, there were moments I was happy just to lean back in my seat, shut my eyes and marvel at the dulcid tones bewitching my eardrums.

But I do agree with those fans who’ve voiced their concern on message boards about the lack of atmsophere in the auditorium. Indeed, at one stage during the concert, Joe’s keyboardist appealed to the audience for more interaction.

Much of this is to do with The Sage itself which has the feel of a secular cathedral. And I’m sure the thousands who attend classical music recitals or even concerts loosely belonging to the pop genre at this spruce venue wouldn’t have the setting any other way.

Similarly, anyone who attends a gig at the O2 Academy rarely has any reason to complain about the atmosphere and that’s almost entirely down to the standing-only facility on the ground floor.

Just as at football matches, no-one feels self-conscious, dancing, fist-pumping or even bouncing up and down when you can then hide yourself in a mosh pit crammed with concert-goers who basically want to act in similar fashion.

Yet at the Bonamassa gig, when a lady behind me stood up alone, after one breathtaking guitar solo, I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to cringe in embarrassment or admire her audacity not to be confined by the restrictions placed upon here.

Years ago at Newcastle City Hall, there were three types of gigs - those where you sat down throughout the set, those you stood up the moment the lights went down to announce the arrival of the band.

And then there were the third in-between kind whereby at one, almost pre-defined moment, everyone stood up in unison. I remember as a kid at a Lindisfarne gig checking my concert programme to see if there was a notice in it announcing `And when the band begin to play Meet Me Round The Corner, everyone must get to their feet’!

The fact is there is no right or wrong way to watch a concert and just as there is no such thing as the perfect venue, none are totally bad either.

In the North East and on Tyneside specifically, we are now blessed with venues we could have only dreamed about 25 years ago.

The Arena may be soulless - but don’t forget before it was built, how often did the big bands ignore the region because no building was big enough?

The City Hall oozes history and evokes so many memories but lacks the facilities of some of its rivals.

The Academy’s stage is unbearably restricitive and toilet facilities absolutely hopeless but for a standing venue (save 200 seats upstairs), it offers quite wonderful viewing angles.

And as for The Sage, whatever the merits or otherwise of its ability to stage a rock concert, it fills me with pride to hear visitors to our region waxing lyrical about the splendour of the place.

Who needs the Royal Albert Hall anyway?

Ian Murtagh

April 24, 2009

Ther’s nothing like a grand entrance to spark a great gig and rock bands are the masters of them.

Lights out, the auditorium plunged into darkness, wild applause growing in anticipation with every passing second and then………….

We’ve all witnessed some spectacular starts to concerts and AC/DC’s Rock N’Roll Train seems up there with the very best of them.

Those lucky enough to attend recent gigs in London, Manchester and Birmingham will have their own thoughts on the band’s  latest stageshow.

The rest of us have had to make do with watching clips on YouTube. I won’t spoil it for those heading for Wembley, Dublin or Hampden in June, who, unlike me, were able to resist a sneak preview of what they can expect.

But watching AC/DC quite literally burst into life (and I’m not giving too much away) got me thinking about past gigs I’ve been to and how memorably they kicked off.

Of course, eyecatching entrances are no pre-requisite for success. Anyone who owns the Led Zeppelin DVD will know the sheer simplicity of their Royal Albert Hall gig in 1969 almost added to the occasion.

The four band members just walked on set as if heading for a practice session, momentarily tuned up before Robert Plant nervously greeted the audience with a quick `Good Evening’.

Even now many bands who could afford the latest technology, spurn special effects, preferring the spartan impact of arriving on stage with minimum accompaniment. The 70s was a decade in which bands courted extravagance, invariably blending musicianship with showmanship. Rainbow were chief proponents of this art kicking off their concerts with taped music from the Wizard of Oz as Judy Garland’s famous words `We must be over the rainbow’ seagued into Richie Blackmore’s crashing riff.

Rainbow weren’t the only ones to throw classical music into their sets. One of the most effective I witnessed was the Michael Schenker Band’s use of Richard Wagner’s Ride Of The Valkyrie (popular at the time due to the film Apocalypse Now) to drive the crowd into a frenzy before Gary Barden introduced the mighty Armed And Ready.

The first sight most fans had of Brian Johnson as AC/DC’s frontman back in the early 80s was of him hammering a giant bell - not only a wonderfully effective intro to Hells Bells but a poignantly appropriate tribute to his late predecessor Bon Scott.

The Aussie rockers continued to be the masters of the grand entrance on subsequent tours while Rush too have spared no expense at launching their gigs in style.

They compiled films for their R20 and Snakes and Arrows tours, which combined humour with some complex graphics and cartoons, even employing comedian Jerry Seinfeld for the former.

My own personal favourite beginning to a concert in recent times was more austere: Paul Rodgers’ inaugural tour with Queen. With the Arena blacked out, he headed to the front of the walkway unannounced before launching into a short moving song called Reaching Out with a lone spotlight focussed on him.

Then Brian May upped the volume and tempo with the opening chords to Tie Your Mother Down. It sent out a powerful message  - Freddie Mercury’s no longer with us but please accept me and don’t forget this is still Queen.

There may be no golden rule for how a concert should start but there’s a lot to be said for soaring standards from the outset.

Ian Murtagh

April 17, 2009

My mate’s just got his first-ever iPod - a 20th wedding anniversary present from his wife (is there a hidden message there?)

Anyway, I’ve volunteered to help him fill it with music I think he’ll like. Now this could be the start of an exciting new career. Self Made Man – Music Doctor, iPod consultant, Tunes Tutor……..sounds good.

The mate in question (who’s a dentist by the way) has gone through that period in his life which has afflicted many of us at one time or another. Basically, over the years, he lost touch with rock music. The symptoms were initially worrying. I recall back in 2001 when I told him I was to going to see UFO, he gave me one of those looks which said ‘Move on mate, that’s so 20th century’.

His own musical experience was confined listening to Radio Two six or seven hours a day in his surgery..That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

After all, the station plays a lot of decent music these days and let’s face it, you wouldn’t want to run the risk of AC/DC’s Kicked In The Teeth blaring out when you’re sitting, mouth wide open, in his chair

Gradually, however, I realised there was genuine hope for my mate. Indeed, I became cautiously optimistic that if I could handle my first case cleverly and with due care, he wouldn’t just make a full recovery, he’d rediscover the passion for rock music he had as a teenager.

For the foundations were solid, rock solid in fact. My guinea pig, sorry, I mean client, was a big Status Quo fan as a young teenager who then got into bands like Boston and April Wine. He owned UFO’s Strangers In the Night before me and might have been the person who first introduced me to Rush’s first album

Anyway, over the years, his tastes became more AOR and he rarely bought CDs, let alone went to concerts. But there were flickering signs of life. For his 40th birthday, I bought him Bad Company’s Straight Shooter, remembering how much he loved Paul Rodgers’ voice. He seemed appreciative.

And then, quite recently, after listening to Joe Bonamassa at a dinner party, hosted by us, I lent him a couple of the blues’ guitarist’s albums. That did the trick and now he’s looking forward to attending JB’s gig at the Gateshead Sage almost as much as I am.

It was when we were in the pub the other night he broke the news that at last he was the owner of an iPod (welcome to the 21st century pal!!) and had imported the grand total of 12 albums on to it.

Time for Self Made Man to spring into action with the offer of help. I thought I’d proceed cautiously during the first stages of his musical rehabilitation by offering to lend him some indie stuff - Arcade Fire and Fleet Foxes - which he gratefully accepted.

And then he came out with this: ‘And it’s about time I caught up with Led Zeppelin again’. Wow, I’m not just dealing with a student who’ll scrape a pass. My born-again mate is bang on course to graduate with honours in the subject of Rediscovering Music.

For the record, I’ve handed over six CDs for him to import, confidently expecting him to come back for another six very soon. Before too long, he’ll probably me demanding his own blog on rushonrock.

Next patient please……

Ian Murtagh

April 10, 2009

Thought I’d have a bit of fun with this week’s blog by marrying two of my great passions in life – football and music.

And as there’s nothing to laugh at about the state of North East football, we’ll have to rely on the music to give us all something to smile about.

So I’ve decided to give every Premier League outfit their own musical accompaniment. In other words, if every club was a band or artist, who would they be?

Now it would be very convenient and appropriate to say Newcastle, Sunderland and Middlesbrough are Spandau Ballet, Take That and The Osmonds respectively because they’re all crap.

But that’s too easy. Instead, I’m confining my associations to bands or artists loosely categorised in the rock genre.

Working down the Premier League table as it stands today, here goes:

Manchester United: U2 – always one of the biggest in the world and from the early 90s until the modern day, the most successful too.

Liverpool: Led Zeppelin – ruled the 70s. Few recent appearances at the very top of the tree but contain some of the finest individuals in the game.

Chelsea: Deep Purple – Never quite scaled the same heights since the Special One left. Still massive in Russia though.

Arsenal: Pink Floyd – Aristocrats who continue to influence and grow in popularity despite no recent success.

Aston Villa: The Answer – Hugely impressive frontman. Being tipped as the next big thing.

Everton: Def Leppard – Never really considered members of the elite even though no-one could touch them for a few years in the mid-80s.

West Ham: Iron Maiden – Who else? Steve Harris would probably sue if I’d said anyone else!

Wigan: Joe Bonamassa – Starved of publicity but now starting to get the recognition it deserves.

Fulham: ZZ Top – they don’t look the flashiest but these boys can play.

Manchester City: Guns N Roses – thrown loads of money at its latest project but still to rediscover heights of yesteryear.

Tottenham: REM – Experiments didn’t work so they’ve gone back to what they’re good at and are smiling again.

Bolton: Saxon – They’ll never be fashionable but continue to keep their hardcore of fans satisfied.

Stoke: Stereophonics – Always at their best in their own stamping ground where they have a fanatical following.

Blackburn: AC/DC – defiantly stick to the basics but it proves to be an effective formula for them.

Hull: Airbourne – Breakthrough year after previously plying their trade in a harsher environment.

Portsmouth: UFO – Signs of recovery after almost folding in the mid-80s but not quite the same without its most charismatic member.

Sunderland:  The Darkness – Everything looked in place for take off but suffered a nasty bout of second season/album syndrome.

Newcastle: Spinal Tap – if ever a spoof film was made of football, they’d be shoe-ins for the starring role.

Middlesbrough: Whitesnake – Hugely popular leader but are his powers on the wane?

West Brom: Thin Lizzy – still trying to play wonderful stuff but it’s difficult without the right personnel.

Ian Murtagh

April 3, 2009

Fifteen years ago I owned just one Neil Young album. Today, I have 26 and next week will be buying Fork In The Road on its first day of release.

Then in June, I’m flying over to Dublin with a mate to watch Young in concert for the first time. It will be one of the highlights of my musical summer, rivalling a trip up to Hampden Park to see AC/DC, and shows closer to home by Joe Bonamassa this month and UFO a few days before the Young gig.

One of the great joys of music is to discover an artist or band belatedly.

And there are several who I ‘got into’ years after the release of their first albums. I was never a fan of REM in the early-80s and only started to buy their material a couple of years after Automatic For The People established them as arguably the world’s biggest band.

As a teenager, I enjoyed listening to Pink Floyd without calling myself a big fan but in my 20s as my musical tastes developed, they began to rival Led Zeppelin, Rush and UFO as my personal faves. U2 and Bruce Springsteen were artists I briefly fell in love with, then fell out of love with before rekindling my passion for them very recently.

As far as Neil Young’s concerned, I was always aware of songs such as Heart of Gold and After The Gold Rush in my teens and I recall listening to the live verson of Like a Hurricane with its blistering guitar solo and quite a few rock discos I frequented.

But I didn’t own any of his albums on vinyl and it wasn’t until I was given a ‘Best of..’ collection of his works many years later that I became hooked. Gradually, I stocked up on Young’s incredibly eclectic collection of rock, folk, grunge and all trends in between.

And now, if I had to draw up a list of my top 40 studio albums, there would be at least four of the Canadian’s releases in there. The melancholic intensity of On The Beach is probably my favourite Young album, closely followed by Zuma and Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere which includes the dreamy Down By The River and Cowgirl In The Sand, songs which first made me realise the genius of the man.

His best work wasn’t confined to the late-60s and 70s with the more recent Ragged Glory and Sleeps With Angels – his own tribute to the tragic Kurt Cobain - proving he hadn’t lost his touch. Young is arguably the most prolific artist in rock history, putting many of his peers to shame by averaging almost an album every year since the mid-60s.

Some would argue that his output is all about quantity over quality and even the most devoted Young fan would accept he has written some pretty mediocre stuff. I’ve got one or two mates who insist they can’t stand Neil Young’s music. I’d argue it’s almost impossible to hate everything he has ever written just as it’s not really possible to like everything.

His albums released in the 80s, known as the Geffen years, have been panned by critics and devotees alike as he experimented with everything from bluegrass to techno rock. Young’s latest album is said to be a belter, with Rolling Stone claiming it’s right up there with his very best work.

I might have bought the likes of Harvest, Live Rust and Freedom many years after they first came out but I’ll be hitting the record store first thing on Monday morning for Fork In the Road.

Ian Murtagh

March 27, 2009

It’s not the greatest accolade I’ve ever received but I’m certainly not complaining.

Apparently, I am a marketing man’s dream.

There’s also another expression for the category I appear to fit into so snugly but Mr Typical has nothing on the former. You see as a 40-something Alpha male with spending power (allegedly!) and a big interest in music, I have been identified as the saviour of the CD.

It’s true. Someone within the advertising industry reckons I tick all the boxes. And I can see where he’s coming from because I do buy quite a lot of CDs and now boast around 800 all filed alphabetically and chronologically.

It all started about eight years ago when I gave up smoking cigars and as an incentive, I decided that with the cash I saved, I’d buy a new CD each week. Now, I’m healthier and, shall we say, more in tune with my inner self!!

These days with the exception of newly-released material, most CDs can be bought for a fiver if you hunt around (and that won’t take long with music shops disappearing faster than North East football’s Premiere League football survival prospects). And I fail to understand the attraction of those who prefer to download from iTunes when it probably costs more to import an entire album than to buy it outright with sleeve notes, lyrics et al.

But before I indulge in too much self-congratulatory nonsense, it hit me the other day that I’ve become as much a slave to the digital age as my sons’ generation whose own music libraries have been almost entirely downloaded. My new car’s to blame. Let me explain.

As well as boasting DAB radio, it also has an iPod docking point (I think that’s the technical term) and whereas my previous radio was limited to AM and FM radio, it had a six-CD auto-changer which this one doesn’t.

So now when I’m not listening to Planet Rock, Rock Radio or Five Live, I’ll attach my iPod to the socket and choose one of several thousand songs. It occurred to me the other day that from hereon in, my CDs have become more or less redundant.

Take the new U2 album I bought three weeks ago for example (No Line On Horizon – highly recommended). I took it out of its box, had a quick look at the artwork and sleeve info while waiting for it to import, then played it on my computer whose speakers give excellent sound quality and also feed into the conservatory.

That night, I listened to it again from the conservatory, this time reading the lyrics to each song. I don’t think the CD itself has been out of its box since that day because I tend to do most of my listening on the computer (during working hours) on the iPod (when I’m at the gym) or while driving (self-explanatory).

The only occasion I can envisage playing a CD itself is when I get the opportunity to play music on my Hi-Fi system in the lounge. With the main TV in there, such opportunities are few and far between.

So there you are – I’m almost fully `digitalised.’ But will it stop me heading off to HMV or another record shop to buy the latest releases from UFO, Neil Young or Stevie Nicks, which are due out soon? Will it hell!

As I said at the start, a marketing man’s dream!!

Ian Murtagh

March 20, 2009

When is a band not a band? No, it’s not a trick question but in rock music terms, there is clearly no right or wrong answer.

Take Led Zeppelin for example. When John Bonham died 19 years ago, the three surviving members decided there was little point carrying on because he was such an integral part of it.

And despite three one-off reunions, including the much-hyped O2 event 15 months ago and perennial rumours, there has been no fresh Zep output since their drummer’s premature death. But clearly, the Zeppelin philosophy is not shared by most of their peers. AC/DC frontman Bon Scott died around the same time as Bonham and it could be argued, that as the vocalist, he was even more important to his band.

Yet within months, Scott had been replaced by Brian Johnson and AC/DC went on to enjoy mega-stardom. They are not the only rock band who have succeeded despite replacing possibly their most influential member.

Black Sabbath’s demise was widely predicted following the sacking of Ozzy Osbourne yet in many respects, the first album released with Ronnie James Dio as singer - Heaven and Hell – was perhaps  their best-ever. Talking of Dio brings us on to Rainbow which in many ways was not a band at all but a vehicle for Ritchie Blackmore to pursue his own particular tastes at any one time.

Though Rising and Long Live Rock N’Roll from the Dio era are undoubtedly the most popular with die-hard fans, they are not the most successful. The one album which had Graham Bonnet as its singer – Down To Earth – sold more records than both its predecessors as Blackmore took a more commercial direction. And Difficult To Cure, the subsequent album which featured American Joe Lynn Turner on lead vocals, included I Surrender, which was the band’s biggest hit.

Turner, of course, had a brief spell holding the mic in one of Deep Purple’s many guises though by the time Slave And Masters was released, the group had lost many of its older fans. Deep Purple are probably the most fascinating example of a band who somehow kept their identity despite numerous line-up changes.

The legendary Mk II version which spouted tracks such as Smoke On The Water, Highway Star, and Child In Time was the most famous but Purple survived the departure of Ian Gillan and, some would say, even prospered.

David Coverdale and Glenn Hughes stamped their own identity on the magnificent Burn, which while distinctly different from earlier releases, compares favourably with Machine Head, In Rock and Fireball. Was Blackmore the glue who kept DP together? He probably thought so but Come Taste the Band which featured the tragic Tommy Bolin on lead guitars, is now also regarded as a classic.

And since Steve Morse took over from Blackmore in more recent times, he’s breathed fresh life into a band which was clearly flagging in the early 90s.

Very few individuals can claim to be bigger than the band they are in.

Even Roger Waters, the lyrical genius behind Pink Floyd, overestimated his own importance when he left the band in 1984 and was aghast to discover that the three remaining members not only survived but thrived without him. Indeed, he talks wryly of his 1987 US Tour when he was playing to a few thousand fans while a few miles away his former band-mates were selling out stadiums.

There are obvious examples where bands need individuals more than the other way around. Clearly Whitesnake wouldn’t be Whitesnake without Coverdale. And while bands like Bad Company and Thin Lizzy have tried to carry on without Paul Rodgers and the late Phil Lynott respectively, they were/are a shadow of their former selves.

Which brings me to UFO, who have just announced their UK tour for June. It will be a band which will be bereft of its most charismatic member for Pete Way has not contributed to the forthcoming album The Visitor, nor will he be playing this year due to illness.

Visually, UFO will be poorer without him but just as they’ve flourished since Michael Schenker left for the umpteenth and final time, they’ll be fine in Way’s temporary absence.

Because just like so many rock bands, UFO have proved over the years that the whole is far greater than the sum of the parts.

Ian Murtagh

March 13, 2009

Listening to Thin Lizzy’s excellent Still Dangerous the other day reminded me what a huge loss to music Phil Lynottt is.

The Dubliner was, quite simply, one of the most charismatic frontmen ever and that voice, with its smooth Irish lilt, gave Lizzy a sound which was immediately identifiable.

In many respects, the music sounds fresher today than it did 30 years ago. Like Led Zeppelin, Thin Lizzy seem to be more appreciated now than they were in their heyday.

And I’m not talking about the current version fronted by Scott Gorham and John Sykes, which, having seen them supporting Deep Purple two years ago, struck me as having about as much in common with the Lynott-led band as Motorhead or Metallica.

Lizzy’s following back in the late-70s and early-80s was a curious mix. I knew several rock fans who couldn’t stand them and quite a few pop fans who loved them.

Maybe that was because their songs relied more on melody and Lynott’s ‘folky’ voice than riffs and volume. And unlike so many of their contemporaries, they didn’t turn their back on the singles market and always looked comfortable on Top of the Pops.

Growing up, Lizzy weren’t in my top 10 of favourite bands but Lynott still provided me and my mate Mike with one of our most memorable ‘rock’ moments.

We hadn’t bought tickets for their gig at Newcastle’s City Hall but were sufficiently interested to hang outside the venue on the night taking turns with about 10 other people to have a peep through a broken window which gave a clear view of the stage.

The two of us hung around afterwards and our patience was rewarded when one of the band’s roadies gave us tickets to see Wild Horses at the nearby Poly.

Wild Horses were formed by ex-Lizzy guitarist Brian Robertson and ex-Rainbow bassist Jimmy Bain and included Neil Carter, later of UFO, in their ranks.

I’d actually heard quite a few songs from their first album and had been seriously tempted to go in any case. The gig was an absolute belter, made more so by the fact that Lynott joined his mate Robbo on stage for more than an hour - having decided that two hours on stage with Lizzy clearly wasn’t enough for him.

And so there we were with just a few hundred other lucky fans, witnessing one of the most intimate gigs imaginable and our night was made complete when we managed to go backstage afterwards to meet Phil and the Wild Horses guys.

Can’t say what went on behind the scenes (we don’t want rushonrock closed down!!) but a night which had started out with two skint students standing on window ledges hoping for a few minutes’ worth of free music turned into an experience never to be forgotten.

Ian Murtagh

March 6, 2009

It was news that I had been dreading. Live TV has forced Newcastle to switch their crucial relegation clash at home to Portsmouth to Monday, April 27. The same bloody night the Australian Pink Floyd are playing at the Arena.

As a football journalist, I have no option but to be at St James’s Park rather than watch the best tribute act on the planet. And I suppose I should be grateful than in all my years as a rock lover and a sportswriter, there haven’t been more occasions when I’ve found myself ‘double-booked’.

As a kid, I remember missing a Nazareth gig at the City Hall through illness and turning up at the Mayfair only to find AC/DC’s concert had been cancelled due to a small fire. But in more recent times, I recall only two occasions when sport’s got in the way of music.

Back in 1997, I had tickets for Aerosmith. It was a Thursday night in May and shouldn’t have presented any problems. Instead, I was despatched to Blackburn’s Ewood Park to cover Middlesbrough’s rearranged game. Football fans will no doubt remember this was a game which should have been staged the previous December but the Teesside club took it upon themselves to postpone it and were subsequently deducted two points which proved the difference between survival and relegation.

A couple of years ago, I didn’t manage to see Whitesnake at the City Hall because it clashed with the first week of Wimbledon - and I was on tennis duty in SW19 when David Coverdale and the boys hit the boards. These days I scan tour dates with a sense of dread, keeping my fingers crossed, Newcastle gigs aren’t set for Tuesdays or Wednesdays which tend to be footy nights.

But with the advent of Sky and Setanta, I’m invariably at the mercy of the TV schedulers. I had an uneasy feeling when Joe Bonamassa’s rearranged concert at The Sage was moved to Wednesday, April 22. The mate I was due to go with has had to bite the bullet because he’s abroad that week but for me…..so far, so good.

Unlike most music fans who also happen to be sports lovers, I have no choice in the matter when two dates clash - unless I wanted to be sacked. But I suspect there will be quite a few Newcastle fans who face a dilemma next month when Aussie Pink Floyd hit Toon.

While the Arena will offer guaranteed entertainment, a magnificent spectacle and a group of highly polished, hugely professional guys performing for almost three hours, a few hundred yards away, there’ll be a very different atmosphere at St James’s Park. The event will last considerably less time, the atmosphere is likely to be tense at best and as for entertainment, talent and commitment? Well, I’ll let you answer that one!

So which invokes the greater tribal loyalty? Football teams or rock bands? Test yourself with a few hyporthetical scnearios. Your team’s reached the FA Cup final but the Led Zeppelin reunion gig you thought would never happen is taking place on the same day - 200 miles away - and you’ve got tickets for both.

Or perhaps you’ve obtained a ticket for one of the Ashes’ Tests. A first-ever trip to Lords’  beckons but by going there, you’ll have to give up on seeing AC/DC, perhaps for the last time,  at Hampden Park. It’s hard, isn’t it?

And it’s not just sport which tests your musical devotion. Birthdays, weddings and Valentine Days invariably enter the mix. I’m on slightly dodgy ground here because I’m still paying the price for going to UFO’s reunion concert on February 14, 1998 with my mates.

I’ve assured Sue I wasn’t prioritising and that while I could guarantee many, many more romantic nights with her, I wasn’t sure if I’d ever see UFO again. Of course, they did tour again and unbelievably their next date in Newcastle was on her birthday. I went!

Ian Murtagh

February 27, 2009

The Pet Shop Boys aren’t exactly my cup of tea but I’m always amused when I hear It’s A Sin, a section of which they sang at The Brits last week.

For the lyrics relate to Neil Tennant’s time at St Cuthberts Grammar School, my old school.

Tennant was about 10 years older than me and he’d left before I arrived -though I was in the same class as his brother Phil.

Basically, the song is a rant against all things Catholic, particularly the rules and regulations which he perceived as being draconian during his unhappy time there.

Whether Tennant was openly gay at the time, I don’t know but for someone that way inclined, a testerone-filled, football obsessed, academic, all-boys catholic grammar school would probably not feel the most comfortable place.

The `father’ he relates to in the song is either Father Walsh, the headmaster when I was there or his predecessor Canon Cassidy and I presume the sins he refers to in the song are his acerbic interpretations of the various school rules he objected to.

For instance attending Benediction on a Friday afternoon was compulsory and boys had to kneel whenever the Blessed Sacrament was being carried from the Chapel to the Main Hall.

The reason I recall this seemingly innocuous tale is to emphasis how lyrics can come alive when there’s some connection.

Apart from our education backgrounds, I have little in common with the Pet Shops Boys singer. Indeed, as a School Governor there and a member of the St Cuthberts Old Boys Association, my memories are far happier than his.

But in music terms, I’ve always felt that while melody sells records, it’s the words to a song that invariably ensure its longevity.

Take Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon for example - one of the biggest selling albums of all-time.

The musicianship is magnificent, the songs, wonderfully composed and the segueing and background mutterings all add to the whole package.

But isn’t it Roger Waters’ lyrics which make it such a talked-about album?

He would certainly argue that’s the case while former band-mates David Gilmour and the late Rick Wright would have argued not. Indeed, the story goes that one of the reasons behind Waters’ decision to sack Wright before The Wall’s release in 1979 was because the keyboardist had said in an interview that lyrics didn’t matter.

Ironically, 15 years later when the Water-less Pink Floyd made The Division Bell, the words to several songs became the subject of much discussion.

Gilmour, who admits he’s no great lyricist, was assisted by his wife Polly and when the album came out, critics claimed that several of the songs were anti-Waters diatribes.

The guitarist denied this but there’s no doubt songs like Poles Apart, Great Day For Freedom and What Do You Want From Me? can all be interpreted as such.

But so many songs in music are open to different interpretations, fuelling never-ending debates about their ‘inner-meaning’.

To me, lyrics seem to be in three categories 1 To get a message across, cryptically or otherwise; 2 To express a gamut of emotions - love, lust, jealousy, anger etc; or 3 to tell a story.

While musicians such as Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Waters or Tennant generally belong in the first category, songwriters like Robert Plant and Bon Scott would fit snugly into the second while Bruce Springsteen and Phil Lynott are examples of No. 3.

Of course, those categories are very arbitary and you can probably think of countless songs which don’t fit in any. But what’s not in dispute is that sometimes the words to a song can be more memorable than the tune.

The fact I’ve kicked off this blog by talking about the Pet Shop Boys surely proves that beyond question!

Ian Murtagh

February 20, 2009

When I was a young kid staying with my grandparents, they used to listen to Desert Island Discs on Radio Four immediately after World At One.

And to be honest, the  programme would bore me rigid with some high-brow personality choosing music which held about as much interest to me as the depressing current affairs which had preceded it.

But the programme was ‘of an age’ and let’s face it, 10-year-old philistines weren’t exacty their target audience. These days, the music chosen by its guests is more eclectic but even so, it still gives the impression of being in a time warp.

I recall a few years ago when Tory leader David Cameron, who’s roughly the same age as me, made the news for choosing Radiohead’s Fake Plastic Trees as one of his songs. Shock, horror - man in early 40s likes Radiohead!

Now to me, the only surprise was that Cameron demonstrated such sound judgement. Yet it was deemed a news item because a public figure chose something veered from the maintstream and could be described as rock, alternative or indie.

Let’s be brutally honest here. If anyone under 55 went on Desert Island Discs and chose an entire collection of classical music, you’d suspect there was something wrong with him. Now I’ve absolutely nothing against the great composers and admit to being rather partial to Mendelsson, Mozart and Bach, without being tempted to nominate any music by them when the Beeb come calling for my appearance on the show.

But anyone who grew up from  the 60s onwards and claims that rock or pop music haven’t formed the sonic backdrops to their lives must have endured pretty sheltered existences. Indeed, I’d hazard a guess that if you picked 100 people at random between the ages of 25 and 55 and asked them to name their 20 top tunes, a high percentage of them would instinctively pick music entirely from the rock and pop genres.

Which leads me to ask the obvious question: “Is Desert Island Discs rigged?’” Or, at the very least, are guests ‘leant on’  to choose a wide and varied selection?

I’m sure producers would tolerate a blast of Led Zeppelin or Black Sabbath sandwiched in between Bizet’s Carmen and Bless Your Beautiful Hide from Seven Brides For Seven Brothers..But I suspect there’d be editorial interference if the castaway prefaced it with Motorhead, segueing AC/DC’s Thunderstruck into Paranoid.

Or perhaps I’m doing Desert Island Discs and its guests a gross disservice.

For let’s imagine for a few moments, we were cast away on that desert island with just The Bible, the Complete Works of Shakespeare,  another book (I’d choose Wisden) and some music for company. Wouldn’t we fancy a diverse genre-shedding collection ourselves?

Come to think of it, while Pink Floyd’s Shine On You Crazy Diamond,  Zeppelin’s Kashmir and Neil Young’s Down By The River would be my first three choicea, I’d be rather partial to Elgar’s Nimrod, some Irish rebel music such as The Merry Ploughman and perhaps even True Love from High Society on the headphones as the sun beat down and the warm sea tickled my feet.

And having been to the Theatre Royal this week to watch and thoroughly enjoy West Side Story, the heart-tugging Somewhere would make Self Made Man’s list too.

Now all that remains is for some BBC executive to cast me away on my idyllic island with a ready supply of Old Speckled Hen beer, wholenut yoghurts and a nice comfy hammock and that’s my idea of paradise.

Ian Murtagh

February 13, 2009

Who’s the best? It’s a question that’s been the cause of countless arguments, discussions and debates over the decades.

Years ago, the world seemed to be split in two as we all took sides in a series of sporting duels. McEnroe or Borg, Coe or Ovett, Davis or Higgins?

Personally, I have a theory about those particular duels. If you were a John McEnroe fan – which I was and still am, then you automatically backed Steve Ovett against Seb Coe and Alex Higgins against Steve Davis.

It was almost a case of establishment against anti-establishment, rebel versus goody-two shoes, artist against machine. And being a self-labelled rebel without a cause, I naturally sided with the bad guys. (I’ve softened my stance against Borg and Davis but to this day, I can’t stand Tory boy Coe and that horrible side-parting of his!!).

Anyway, such debates were not confined to the sporting arena.

I recall the sense of anticipation in sixth form in the days leading up to the results of the Sounds annual poll. Sitting on the fence was strictly forbidden so I was forced to take sides in the most presitgious award of them all: who would win the greatest guitarist title?

Richie Blackmore versus Jimmy Page, two heroes of mine.

We all knew it was between the two mega-gods who dominated such polls in the late-70s and reluctantly, I had to pick a winner. I guessed correctly that year with the Rainbow axeman ensuring the Led Zeppelin founder wouldn’t retain his title though I stressed to my mates that if I’d had the casting vote, I’d have given them a joint award.

Anyway, I recall the smug looks of satisfaction among Blackmore fans once the results were published. It was almost as if the poll was definitive, unequivocal and infallible. ‘Told you, Richie’s the greatest - this proves it.’

But of course polls settle no arguments. They merely reignite them, pour fuel onto fires and and intensify debates. Even so, I’m hooked on polls, best-of lists, and surveys.

Though I’m now in my 40s, I still take great satisfaction when there’s a top hundred list of best albums, best guitarists or best songs published in a national newspaper and rock music features heavily. And there’s still that schoolboy ire when I’m poring over one and there are notable omissions.

Anyway, I refer you all to this link featuring the best 100 guitar solos, as recently decided by Guitarist Magazine.

http://guitar.about.com/library/bl100greatest.htm

Now I’ve no complaint at all that Stairway To Heaven is No. 1 even though it’s predictable. And I’m glad to see Comfortably Numb is right up there was well.

But as I was working my way through the list, my bewilderment  grew. Where’s Deep Purple’s Child In Time or Rock Bottom by UFO? And why no Joe Bonamassa in the top hundred?

It reminded me of my reaction all those years ago to those Sounds polls.

Nice to know I haven’t changed too much!

Ian Murtagh

February 6, 2009

We’ve all experienced that feeling of absolute incredulity over a band, an album or just a song.

‘How the hell can you not like that!’ is my usual response to those who turn their noses up at my musical tastes. In other words, they’re tone deaf.

Now I can appreciate that some bands can split opinion. Rush, for instance, are a classic example of a band you either love or hate. And while Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd may be two of the biggest-selling bands of all-time, I accept there are millions of sad people out there who don’t like them.

The three bands I mention have sold millions upon millions of albums over more than three decades and have huge fan bases on every Continent. UFO should belong to that category yet today, while they’re still going strong, their days of selling out Arenas and figuring in albums charts across the world are long gone.

Yet whenever I listen to their music, I wonder why they never really made it into the Premier League of rock.
Cards on the table first. UFO are one of my favourite bands (hence the Self Made Man tag) and, to my dying day, I will believe Strangers In The Night is the greatest live album ever made.

Many, many rock fans agree with me as a poll a few years ago in Classic Rock demonstrated with SITN being voted No.2 in a list of the best-ever live cuts, just behind Thin Lizzy’s Live And Dangerous but ahead of such notables as Deep Purple’s Live In Japan, Zeppelin’s How The West Was Won and If You Want Blood by a Bon Scott-led AC/DC.

Back in 1978, UFO looked on the verge of megastardom only for Michael Schenker to quit the band at their height of popularity. In the past fortnight, Chrysalis have re-released the three albums they wrote in the aftermath of Schenker’s departure with former Lone Star guitarist Paul Chapman replacing the German.

I’ve just bought No Place To Run and The Wild, The Willing and The Innocent and will complete the set soon by buying the third album of the Chapman era which is Mechanix (the album with arguably the worst sleeve in music history).

Ironically, the first two were UFO’s best-selling albums in the UK and I recall that between 1979 and 1982, the band, who always toured in January and February, would play two nights at the Newcastle City Hall and sell out both. Yet for all that, it didn’t quite happen for them. Bands who were their peers, such as AC/DC and Whitesnake went on to scale greater heights and bands who supported them and cited Phil Mogg and the boys as major influences, such as Iron Maiden, far surpassed their own achievements.

To this day, I would maintain it wasn’t a downturn in the quality of their music nor necessarily the replacing of Schenker with Chapman that halted their upward mobilty. UFO ticked so many of the boxes which should have allowed them to satisfy the mainstream without compromising their rock roots.

Two appearances on Top Of The Pops saw them play Young Blood and Lonely Heart to a wider audience. Both songs had melody and a ‘poppy’ feel about them with the latter even having a tuneful blast of saxaphone. Yet neither breached the top 30.

UFO self-imploded in the mid-80s only to make a comeback 12 years later. And their most recent albums have been widely acclaimed. Yet UFO will go down in the annals of rock as the band that effortlessly climbed Everest only to slip with the summit in sight.

It’s a widely held view that any rock collection is incomplete without Strangers In The Night but anyone keen to explore some of the finest classic rock ever made, should delve into their back catalogue both pre- and post-1978.

You will not be disappointed

Ian Murtagh

January 30, 2009

Musical taste is very personal, highly subjective and above all downright illogical.

I’ve got a mate who claims he hates rock music yet his iPod suggests otherwise. Flicking through it the other day, 90% of it was, admittedly reggae, soul and pop. Yet interspersed with countless names I’d never even heard of, I noticed a selection of Bob Dylan tracks, a couple of Bruce Springsteen albums, plenty of music by The Cult and the entire back catalogue of The Levellers.

So I challenged him: ‘If you like Dylan and Springsteen, then surely you must like Neil Young?’ But no, the Winnipeg song wizard was not his cup of tea. ‘What about Aerosmith then? They sound a bit like The Cult,’ I said hopefully but I knew the answer that was coming.

But Niall is not alone in having a music collection which isn’t just inconsistent but borders on the hypocritical. Indeed, I’d argue that nearly all of us fall into the same category as my reggae-loving pal.
We’re all eclectic to varying degrees and invariably it’s only a form of prejudice which prevents us liking certain bands.

Take myself as an example. I hate The Smiths even though I acknowledge Johnny Marr is an outstanding guitarist and occasionally good songwriter. But my antipathy to the band probably goes back to the first time I saw them on Top Of The Pops. Basically, I thought Morrissey, flower et al, was a prat.

That’s no reason to dislike a group’s music but image does play a role in determining our likes and dislikes. I didn’t get into REM until well into the 90s when I had to acknowledge that it was the image the band projected in their early days rather than the music which turned me off them. Now I have every album they’ve ever released and accept I was wrong back then.

It’s the same with Springsteen. It certainly wasn’t an image problem with The Boss, more the fact that when I got to university, everyone seemed to love him so I took it upon myself to close my mind to his music until realising I was cutting off my nose to spite my face.

As a rock fan, there are some bands I should like but I’ve never quite got into – Judas Priest and Iron Maiden being classic examples though regular readers of this blog might recall how I used to draw a line between heavy metal and hard rock and those two, fell on the wrong side of it. Growing older, my love of rock music has, if anything, intensified. At the same time, my obsession with image has, thankfully, vanished.

And it’s no coincidence that this has led to my musical tastes broadening.

I’ll never really get into soul, hip-hop or reggae (sorry Niall) but today I judge bands on the music alone. A degree of bias will always come into it because that’s human nature but I’d hate to think that I’d ever again shut my mind to the sounds of a band just because there was something else I didn’t like about them.

Ian Murtagh

January 23, 2009

Thirty years ago I had the uniform. Faded denim jeans, denim jacket, T-shirt and trainers.

And now? Well, believe it or not I don’t possess anything made of denim, not even a pair of jeans. In fact, I don’t think I’ve worn a pair of denim jeans for at least two decades.

And come to think of it, apart from when I’m jogging, gyming or playing football, I haven’t worn trainers for roughly the same length of time.

When I go to rock concerts, I’m amazed how many fans still wear ‘the uniform’.

(And I’m even more amazed how those T-shirts bought in 1981 still fit some people - Matthew, take a bow).

Though I’m one of those who still can and does keep my hair relatively long, the rest of the gear went the journey around the same time as my 30 inch waist.

To be honest, I wasn’t one of the denim brigade who got their mums to sew the names of all their favourite bands on the back of their jacket.

While little brother had a superb Richie Blackmore embroided on his by a friend of the family, I preferred my jacket bare save for two or three metal pin badges on the collar.

I can’t remember wearing that jacket too much during my student days, however. By then I’d graduated (pardon the pun) to a leather jacket paid for out of my student grant.

And denim jeans went the journey a few years later. My new uniform was tight black cords and I must have owned four or five pairs until my wife-to-be broke the devastating news that she hated that look.

Anyway, I digress. The fact is that I must be the only bloke I know who doesn’t own any denim. Even in my own house, my wife and three sons have about 20 pairs between them.

Me? I stick to chinos and the odd pair of cords.

Over the years, the irony of my denim-free wardrobe has been commented upon on numerous occasions because for some reason, people expect ‘rockers’  to wear the uniform.

But they’re wrong - and this is where I finally get to the point of the story.

We are not stereotypes, slaves to fashion or stuck in a time warp. It was different in the 70s and early 80s when what we wore told the world who we were. Today, all that binds us together is the music we love. But politically, culturally and fashion-wise we are all very different.

That’s what makes gig-going 2009-style so very fascinating. Some still wear the clothes of yesteryear and good luck to them. Others arrive at a gig in the same gear they’d wear if they were having a couple of pints down the local.

Me? Well, I might not have any denim but I’ve still got that leather jacket I wore as a student all those years ago and it still fits! Just about.

Ian Murtagh

January 16, 2009

I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with support bands.

There’s a part of me which has always felt sorry for them because they’re rarely allowed sufficient time for sound-checking (with predictable consequences), set lists are invariably limited to around 40 minutes and not only are they afforded a pitiful lightshow, they’re restricted to about half the stage too.

I’ve witnessed some good support acts, some bad ones, plenty of unlucky ones and one that were so bloody awful, it almost got myself and three of my mates chucked out of the concert.

Their name was Angelwitch (please don’t tell me they’re still around) and they were supporting either Sammy Hagar or April Wine at the Newcastle City Hall back in the early 80s.

Anyway, not only were they handicapped by the problems listed above which seem to affect so many bands in their position, Angelwitch were pretty tuneless too.

The four of us had front row seats and while normally, we’d retire to the downstairs bar if the support band weren’t to our liking, this lot were so bad we decided to have a bit of fun.

Basically by taking the piss!

It reached a head when they started playing their signature tune which had the memorable chorus I’m An Angelwitch, You’re An Angelwitch sung (and I use the term loosely) about 10 times.

In our best John Travolta poses, we took off our denim jackets and decided to swing them around our heads a la Saturday Night Fever in timing to the music.

Now the band didn’t take kindly to being mocked by a handful of teenagers and managed to get word to their road crew. To cut a long story short, our audtions for Saturday Night Fever - The Sequel were dramatically and violently cut short by two burly bouncers who performed their own rather painful manoevres on us, with the warning that we sit down or else.

Watching support acts can be an enriching experience, however, and some bands have established themselves without the benefit of headlining.

I remember watching Billy Squire warm up for Whitesnake and the Canadian rocker was so good I bought his album the following day. And in more recent times, I enjoyed The Stone Gods just as much as Airbourne at the Carling Academy even though they were cursed by a poor sound system.

Some support slots have gone down in rock history. It’s a little known fact that UFO’s magnificent live album Strangers In The Night was recorded at the Chicago Amphitheatre in 1978 when they were on Blue Oyster Cult’s undercard. (Within months, the roles were reversed).

And Van Halen broke through both here and in the United States when, legend has it, they blew headline act Black Sabbath off stage virtually every night of the tour.

Like a lot of rock fans, I’m often guilty of spending my time in the pub or at the bar of the venue when a support act is playing. I could claim it’s for fear of experiencing another ‘Angelwitch moment’ but looking back on the dozens of concerts I’ve attended over the years, the odds suggest I’m just as likely to miss a blinding set by a band on the verge of a major breakthrough.

So that’s another New Year’s resolution for 2009. Support the support - even if I might live to regret it.

Ian Murtagh

January 9, 2009

It’s well over 20 years since I kicked the habit.

And yes, I do feel fitter, happier and healthier for doing so.

Radio One really is bad for you.

In fact it was only the late, great Tommy Vance’s Friday Night Rock Show and Steve Wright In The Afternoon which kept me listening to the self-titled ‘home of pop’.

While I will now admit that Simon Bates’ Golden Hour  and My Tune were the soundtracks to my days of revising for O and A levels, in truth, by the mid-80s, I’d long since realised Radio One didn’t fulfil my musical needs.

The problem was that at the time, no other radio station did so either with Radio Two still very much stuck in the dark ages and the recently launched commercial stations boringly mainstream.

These days, Planet Rock and Five Live are my stations of choice while I will occasionally listen to Radio Two which (Brand and Ross notwithstanding) has upped its game tremendously in recent years..

But if I want to discover new music, I’ve got my own bizarre method, which up to a few days ago, I thought was exclusive to me only to find that most of my mates do exactly the same.

And that’s to go on to the Amazon website, key in a band I like and then scroll down to the link which says ‘customers who bought this product also bought products by the following artists’, before playing short snippets of the songs.

Of course, there will be times Planet Rock, Radio Two, the consistently excellent Jools Holland show on BBC Two,  Classic Rock magazine’s free CD or even the recommendation of a friend will bring new music to my attention.

But the Amazon system has been the most effective so far. I discovered the Fleet Foxes using that system after ordering Dennis Wilson’s reissued Pacific Ocean Blue last summer.

And I also got into rock bands such as The Answer, Black Stone Cherry and even The Darkness this way.

It doesn’t have to be new music either. I recall The Allman Brothers’ collection first caught my attention by following a few Amazon links and reading reviews.

Joe Bonamassa, who I’d now class as one of my favourite artists, first caught my eye when ordering a Rory Gallagher CD.

I suspect that like a lot of rock fans, I’m probably guilty of looking back into the past for my music rather than going out looking for new music.

Naturally, classic rock is my music of choice and most of the music I buy and listen to in 2009 will be of the genre, a significant proportion of it, possibly two, three or four decades old.

But I’d love to think that this time next year, when I’m compiling my list of best albums of the year, it will include music by a few bands I’ve yet to hear.

Feel free to send me a few recommendations. I’ll follow them up just as I’ll investigate all the aforementioned channels of information.

But I’ll guarantee Amazon will be my chief barometer.

Ian Murtagh

January 2, 2009

I’ve never watched X-Factor, Strictly Come Dancing or Britain’s Got Talent. I hate East Enders, Dr Who and Emmerdale Farm with a passion.

I haven’t got into Gavin and Stacey, Harry Hill leaves me cold and comics such as Jimmy Carr or Al Murray are about as funny as Ernie without Eric. As for quiz shows, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and Weakest Link are way past their sell-by date while Never Mind The Buzzcocks used to be OK until they got some weird-looking ex-public schoolboy presenting it.

I can’t understand what all the fuss is about surrounding Wallace and Gromit. Casualty, The Bill and Holby City are just plain boring and Family Fortunes insults my intelligence. The Queen’s Speech is boycotted in my republican household, Top Gear I can take in very small doses, while the Simpsons and Family Guy have never interested me.

But I still managed to watch some great stuff on the box over the festive period and for that, I must pay tribute to Sky Arts which is fast becoming one of my favourite channels on TV. It’s not that I instinctively reject everything populist. I never miss an episode of Coronation Street, the Royle Family I found surprisingly entertaining while the Blackadder documentary was excellent.

And on Boxing Night before Match of the Day, the tribute to Bill Cotton, former head of BBC Entertainment and the 1971 Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show made for wonderful viewing. But my favourite programme was about Sid Barrett and the music and culture of the summer of love in 1967 which was shown at 9pm on Sky Arts.

A few years ago, I would have condemned people who watched minority TV channels at such times as sad bastards, arty-farties, sandal-wearing liberals or sociologist lecturers. Not now. I’m increasingly finding myself watching BBC 4 or Sky Arts now that VH1 Classic will use any excuse not to transmit its Jukebox programme.

In the past two months, BBC 4 has had specials on Genesis, Pink Floyd and Neil Young while Sky Arts has featured excellent concerts by Queen, The Beach Boys and Thin Lizzy to name just three bands. And in the next few days, the Beeb are showing a documentary on Prog Rock, featuring music by Jethro Tull, Emerson, Lake and Palmer and Genesis.

For those of us who feel disenfranchised by the wave of reality shows on TV at the moment, the minority channels are providing a welcome sanctuary. So don’t be too disheartened by the TV listings on mainstream channels. The next time you feel trapped by an endless diet of Simon Cowell, Bruce Forsyth and Barbara Windsor, keep pressing that remote control - you might be in for a pleasant surprise.

Ian Murtagh

December 27, 2008

The parcel arrived three or four days before Christmas Day and though its contents were concealed by the brown wrapping paper, it was obvious by the shape that it contained two LPs.

I was delighted, my ten-year-old younger brother less so. He wasn’t into music at the time and had hoped that our Germany-based Auntie and Uncle would have sent him some Airfix soldiers for Christmas.

Me? I couldn’t wait for the big day to find out what album they’d sent across for their eldest nephew.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, my war-obsessed brother got just about the only record in the entire world he might have the remotest interest in - Famous War Themes, featuring such film classics as the music from 633 Squadron, Where Eagles Dare and The Longest Day.

In contrast, I unwrapped possibly the worst  music ever to be put on vinyl - The Spinners in Concert. Had I been sent the latest releases from Val Doonican or Des O’Connor, I could not have been more upset.

That was 1974. Twelve months on and I had one of my best-ever Christmases. Mum and Dad bought me my first hi-fi system and I christened it by putting on Queen’s Night At The Opera which I received (no, not from aforementioned aunt and uncle!) that very same day.

The only problem was that Night At The Opera came in a pristine white gatefold sleeve which unfortunately stayed clean for approximately ten minutes.

Indeed, when I look at the record today, I’m still reminded of the selection box I surreptitiously scoffed before Christmas lunch because some of the chocolate smudges are still visible all these years later.

LPs, cassettes (briefly), CDs and DVDs have been a feature of virtually every Christmas I’ve experienced and, writing this blog, on Christmas Eve, I’m hopeful of having my collection increased by at least four tomorrow morning.

My sons no longer ask for CDs because they download most of their music.

But a couple of years ago, No. 2 son asked for The Fratellis’ debut album from his great aunt and uncle (yes, The Spinners’ ones). Anyway, a few days before Christmas, I received a call from one of them saying they couldn’t possible buy it because the CD contained a rude word on the back.

I gave a suitable alternative before having a quiet chuckle to myself.

For after that Spinners episode, I let nothing to chance in subsequent years, giving all my relatives a list of the albums I wanted.

A few years later, they bought me Whitesnake’s Come N Get It in all innocence.

Thankfully, they didn’t examine the snake’s tongue on the front sleeve too closely and realise what it looked like, (a vagina), otherwise I might have ended up with another Spinners record.

Maybe after a sherry or two this festive period I might break it to them gently how they corrupted me in my youth!

Merry Christmas, Ian Murtagh.

December 19, 2008

It’s a question that’s been posed by sociologists, philosophers and psychologists over the years, never mind musicians.
Were Slade heavy rock?

And was Merry Christmas Everyone, the first and so far the one and only Yuletide No. 1 which belongs to our beloved genre.

The reason I ask is because if the answer is an overwhelming yes, then my love for rock music began when I was ten and not during second year in grammar school when I bought Razamanaz by Nazareth and Led Zeppelin IV.

More significantly, it provides evidence that millions of people around the country love rock music without ever realising it.

I can vividly remember splashing out two weeks’ pocket money on the Slade single when it was first released in November 1973.

What was the appeal? Well, I suppose the fact it was seasonal must have played its part but generally I loved it for its crunchy riffs, its catchy hook and the pounding pace.

Exactly the same ingredients which contribute towards so many rock songs.

Slade, along with The Sweet (another band who could quite easily fit into the heavy rock genre), Mud (who definitely couldn’t),  Gary Glitter (the less said about him, the better), T Rex and Roxy Music (both of whom sound as fresh today as they did 35 years ago) were the darlings of Top Of The Pops at a time when Glam rock ruled the singles chart.

Though I was far too young to analyse their market at the time, it’s a fair bet that both Slade and The Sweet  garnered sales  as much from the rock fraternity as the singles market.

Back then, it wasn’t exactly a leap of faith for a Led Zeppelin fan to buy Slade’s Mama, We’re All Crazee Now as it wasn’t unusual  for a teenage girl who loved the Osmonds to buy Sweet’s Ballroom Blitz.

And no doubt there were plenty of record collections which included Alice Cooper’s Schools Out and T Rex’s 20th Century Boy alonside  hits by David Cassidy, the Jackson Five and Donny Osmond.

That was the beauty of Glam Rock - it transcended barriers, blurred distinctions and appealed to the widest possible market.

In the broadest sense, pop fans bought the music because it was fun, catchy and immediate, rockers liked its loudness, its raucous rhythm and the guitar element to the songs.

It’s no coincidence that since Slade hit the No. 1 spot 35 years ago, the only rock band to come anywhere near matching that feat at this time of year was The Darkness with Christmas Time (Don’t Let The Bells End).

And The Darkness unashamedly admitted they were Glam Rock revivalists who took their inspiration from bands such as Slade and The Sweet.

Before their demise, The Darkness captured an audience far more eclectic than most rock bands in the same way their predecessors did.

So to answer the question posed at the start, Slade might not have been heavy rock but they sowed the seeds for many impressionable kids like me to eventually fall in love with rock music.

What’s more anyone who still turns up their noses at Glam Rock should buy The Best Glam Rock Album - Ever.

You might even find yourself headbanging to Suzi Quatro!

Ian Murtagh

December 12, 2008

MOST embarrassing music moment of the year? That’s an easy one.

Going on Planet Rock’s Anorak Quiz in January and only answering four questions correctly in the allotted minute. Not only that but one of the (several) questions I got wrong was failing to identify the opening lyrics to Good Times, Bad Times by Led Zeppelin.

I listen to the quiz quite regularly and without the pressures of talking live to the rock nation, usually score between five and eight. But whenever the lyrics question comes up, I’m stumped. The words, quite literally, fail me.

I’ve a theory for this shameful void in my music knowledge. It’s all down to my A level English teacher.

Now Mr Noone was a quite outstanding teacher and if it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t have achieved top grade. But he placed great emphasis on learning weighty texts from the various books we were studying. To this day, I can still recite Macbeth’s famous Is this a dagger..  soliloquy,  Portia’s courtroom plea for mercy in A Merchant of Venice and even Keats’ sumptuous Ode to Autumn.

A Catholic education and daily assemblies also ensured that even now, I can sing dozens of hymns without ever fluffing the lines. But I paid a terrible price for such a misspent youth. O Spirit of God is one thing, Spirit of Radio quite another!

You see my adolescent dalliance with Shakespeare, the metaphysical poets and choral worship meant I neglected my studies in the hidden meaning of Dark Side of the Moon, I failed to understand Neil Peart’s social message when he wrote Rush’s magnum opus 2112 and I didn’t fully appreciate the double entendres in AC/DC’s catalogue.

Of course, there are some songs I do know off by heart: Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody of course, Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here also springs to mind, so does Big Balls by AC/DC and, for some bizarre reason, The Scaffold’s Lily The Pink, which I learnt as a seven year old.

But ask me to write down the words to Zeppelin’s Black Dog, Neil Young’s Heart of Gold, Sweet Emotion by Aerosmith, Free’s Wishing Well or Deep Purple’s Lazy, all-time favourites of mine and songs I must have listened to thousands of times, and there would be huge gaps in the transcripts.

It’s the same at concerts when the crowd join in.  You’ve probably spotted me during these singalongs. I’m the one mumbling, miming or even getting the words all wrong which is a pity because I’ve got quite a pleasant voice. The great irony of all this is that I’m the first to complain when a CD’s booklet doesn’t contain the lyrics of every song on the album. If memory serves me correctly, AC’DC have never included them while Led Zeppelin famously only reproduced the words to one of their songs - Stairway to Heaven on IV. Such a handicap hasn’t prevented millions of fans across the world, many of whom don’t even speak English as their first language, learning the words to all their songs.

Rock music has produced some of the best, wittiest, most thought-provoking lyrics of the modern age and lyricists such as Bob Dylan, Roger Waters, Bono and Thom Yorke are considered poets in their own right. It’s also produced some of the sleaziest, smuttiest and sexist. Step forward David Coverdale.

The works of DC may never be studied in schools but let’s face it, Shakespeare himself would have been proud of penning those immortal words Would I lie to you? Just to get in your pants, I think so!.

Ian Murtagh

December 5, 2008

Across the world there will be thousands of rock fans in denial. Or Guns N Roses fans to be precise.

For they’re refusing to admit what their ears are telling them - that the long-awaited release of Chinese Democracy is one big letdown.

Now I’m not saying that every single person who likes the album (I’m sure you’re not alone Rushy!) is wrong. In fact, I’ll put my cards on the table and admit I’ve never been a huge fan of the band. Like virtually every rock fan, I think Appetite For Destruction is a quite magnificent collection of songs.

But as for Use Your Illusion I and II, I can take or leave them and I bought Chinese Democracy as much out of curiosity as anything else.

No, the point I’m making is that it’s one of the toughest calls you’ll ever make in life to admit a new release from a band you love is a dud or that the gig you’ve waited months for is awful.

We’ve all been there even if we haven’t admitted it publicly. It’s the easiest thing in the world to slag off a record by a band you hate. It’s something else to swallow your pride and announce that the band you’d sworn blind only wrote decent material, has just released the proverbial stinker.

I remember the debate which split Led Zeppelin fans when In Through The Out Door – which tragically proved to be their last album - came out weeks after their final UK concerts at Knebworth. Fans were already familiar with the outstanding In the Evening and All Of My Love from the dearly departed Tommy Vance’s Friday Rock Show and were anticipating the rest of the album to match those two tracks.

As a 16-year-old who had only just got into Zep, I loved the album for the simple reason that it was the first album of theirs I bought on its release.

Mates who criticised ITTOD were treated like heretics by rival mates, who themselves were accused of being blinkered to the point of tone deafness.

It was the same with Pink Floyd’s The Wall. Such was the hype, it needed an `Emperor’s New Clothes’ moment (check it out) before most of us acknowledged that while the double album did include one of the greatest guitar solos known to man - on Comfortably Numb – it was a record which rollercoastered between extraordinary highs and a handful of lows.

Many years later,  my devotion to UFO was tarnished by a disastrous gig at Newcastle City Hall in which Michael Schenker struggled to play songs he’d  previously reeled off in his sleep. And the albums Covenant and Sharks did little to redress the balance.

Yet while mates slagged off those two releases, I proceeded to launch a limp defence. As for that concert, well, even loyalty has its limits.

Through the 90s, bands such as Rush, The Scorpions and AC/DC put out albums which were a shadow of their former glories but it was only years later, when I realised I’d stopped playing them on a regular basis, that I was prepared to admit the fact.

Thankfully, that trio have rediscovered their form with their latest releases and even though Black Ice is only weeks old, I’m fairly certain that I’ll be playing it as frequently as I have Snakes and Arrows and Humanity Hour 1 which I listen to today as much as I did in mid-2007 when they both came out.

To those who are still listening to Chinese Democracy with the same gusto in 12 months’ time as they are today, may I heartily apologise for this article. To those who aren’t, remember what you read here!

Ian Murtagh

November 28, 2008

Ask any rock fan to draw up a list of their top 10 albums and it’s a racing certainty there’ll be a live one in it.

Rock music lends itself to live recordings in a way rival genres never can. There are many reasons for this, not least rock bands’ propensity for improvisation.

Now I’d admit there’s a fine line between improvising and egotistic self-indulgence but some of rock’s greatest songs have taken on a life of their own with extended live versions.

Critics of the genre would no doubt claim Led Zeppelin’s Dazed and Confused, first heard on their debut album, represents all that’s wrong with rock when it stretches way beyond 20 minutes on the two live albums The Song Remains The Same and the more recent and even more impressive How The West Was Won.

Naturally, I would disagree. To me, it takes on a new, more vibrant dimension in concert form. Some bands have made their name on the back of live releases. The Allman Brothers’ At Filmore East is still revered today almost four decades after their legendary performance at the Los Angeles venue. It was one of the first occasions a group had stretched songs to two, three, sometimes even four times’  their original length on vinyl with Duane Allman turning `jamming’ into an art form.

There are some bands who are more famous for live releases than studio albums. Two, in particular spring to mind. Thin Lizzy’s Live And Dangerous regularly comes out on top in polls to find the best-ever live album with UFO’s Strangers In The Night not far behind.

Both were released in 1979 at a time when they were at the peak of their powers. Though questions continue to be asked concerning just how `live’ the two albums really are, both are effectively `greatest hits’ packages and even today represent the perfect starting point for anyone eager to `get into’ Lizzy or UFO.

The pair are both widely regarded as bands at their best live but they are not alone. Cheap Trick’s At The Budokan is infinitely superior to any of their studio releases with I Want You To Want Me transformed from a good pop song into a rock classic.

Many rock fans wouldn’t associate Bob Seger and his Silver Bullet band with foot-thumping rock n’ roll yet a listen to his outstanding Nine Tonight would soon convince the doubters that Seger can rock with the best of them. Would Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Freebird be as revered had it not appeared in extended form on One More For the Road? Possibly not.

The same could be said with Deep Purple’s Smoke On The Water and Highway Star which sound so much more dynamic on Made In Japan than on Machine Head. Perhaps AC/DC’s most famous song is Whole Lotta Rosie yet it’s the live version on If You Want Blood with the famous Angus chanting, which has gone down in rock history. Listen to the song on Let There Be Rock and though it’s good, it certainly doesn’t stand out.

Some bands have released live albums to mark the end of one chapter and the start of another with Rush being an obvious example. Though these days, they seem to release a live album after every tour, All the World’s A Stage, Exit..Stage Left (my personal favourite), A Show of Hands and Different Stages marked very separate points in the band’s evolution.

Neil Young’s Live Rust showcased both his electric and acoustic range while the feedback-filled Weld announced to the world that the Canadian had embraced grunge. Live albums aren’t quite so frequent these days but my album of 2008 belongs in that category.

David Gilmour’s Live In Gdansk combines the purity of his studio releases with some wonderfully adapted versions of songs such as Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Echoes and A Great Day For Freedom, which was especially played at the shipyards made famous by Lech Walesa’s Polish strikers, whose actions signposted the downfall of totalitarianism in Eastern Europe.

The fact the album was released at the same time as Richard Wright’s tragic death makes it a poignant listen.

But above all, it encapsulates all that’s good about rock music in its natural form.

Ian Murtagh

November 21, 2008

Hands up all those mugs out there?

Come and join Self Made Man in the queue marked ‘You’ve just been had’.

Yes, I admit it, I fell for it at the recent Paul Rodgers and Queen gig at the Arena. I bought a tour programme.

I can think of better ways of spending £15. Pulling out a couple of crisp notes and burning them for example! At least it would have created a nice flame for 20 seconds - about the same length of time it took me to read the programme.

Sorry, did I say read?

You don’t read pictures, do you? And apart from a page with fan club info, that’s all that was included. OK, the publication was expensively produced and the pics were very nice. But I’m annoyed with myself.

You see, I’d vowed not to put my hands into my pocket for any merchandise only to have it creased, trampled on, spilt over or nicked during the gig. (We’ve all been there!) And do you know what? I succeeded…………until the end of the gig, when, fuelled by five or six pints, the lure of the front cover entrapped me and I splashed out.

Maybe it’s the journalist in me but I’m a sucker for a magazine cover. Classic Rock’s a shoe-in every month but if Q, Uncut or Mojo (not to mention Four Four Two, Rugby World, The Economist or New Statesman) can boast an appealing frontage, nine times out of ten, I’m sucked into buying it.

Don’t judge a book by its cover they say but surely I’m not the only one who occasionally buys a bottle of wine just because it has an attractive label. And I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve chosen a real ale on the basis of how nice its logo looks.

Mind you, at least I didn’t judge records on their sleeves - unlike a mate of mine who shall remain nameless to spare him embarrassment. He’d headed for the record shop - August 1979 I think - intent on buying AC/DC’s Highway To Hell but then changed his mind and bought Going For The One by Yes instead.

The reason?  It’s packaging! The gatefold sleeve, the inner sleeve, the lyrics….how could HTH compete with that when the vinyl came in just a paper sleeve with a picture of the band on it?

I can always remember my own disappointment when the latest UFO album was released in its most basic form. Or my sense of joy and intrigue when I’d take a new record out of its sellophane to discover it opened out into a gatefold and included all the words to every song.

But never was the packaging more important than the record itself. Going back to concert programmes, I recall Fleetwood Mac producing an impressive one on their Say You Will tour while the last two Rush programmes have been decent reads (but not particularly good value).

The Queen and Paul Rodgers brochure is a long, long way from being the best in my collection but it still holds pride of place. Because it’s going to be the last one I ever buy. Until next time………..!

Ian Murtagh

November 14, 2008

Heard the good news?

We’re not dinosaurs anymore. Instead, we’re Dads.

That’s right, Dinosaur music is out and Dad rock is in.

Never mind the fact that millions of girls love rock music or that of the zillions of men into our beloved genre, some may be single/gay/impotent/pre-pubescent/or even past it.

No, our detractors have decided in their infinite wisdom that Dad rock is the appropriate description.

It’s not meant as a compliment but I’ll take it as such, thanks very much.

You see it’s all about jealousy.

Those oh-so-cool dudes into their hip-hop and rap don’t like the fact that so many of their teen and 20-something contemporaries are listening to Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and on the evidence of the audience at last week’s gig at the Telewest Arena, Free, Bad Company and Queen.

So they damn them with faint praise by telling them they’re copycats listening to the music of their elders (and betters!)

Factually, they’re spot-on but our critics are also missing the point.

Has it never occurred to them that their rock-loving mates have better taste than them?

I’d agree it’s not particularly cool to be into music that was released sometimes more than two decade before you were born.

And if anyone between the ages of 14 and 25 headed for a gig wearing a denim jacket emblazoned with his favourite bands, he’d quite rightly be branded a prat.

But what is  pretty cool is to recognise class when it’s trying to burst your eardrums.

And that’s why Led Zeppelin’s Best of compilation Mothership was on the Christmas list of thousands of sixth formers 12 months ago and this year the same kids are buying AC/DC’s Black Ice.

My mates Matt and Alison (who are starting a nationwide campaign to have the term ‘parent rock’ universally recognised) have brought up Andrew and Rachel to appreciate the music they listen to.

And my two elders sons (I’m still working on the eight-year-old) have been to countless gigs with me and thoroughly enjoyed them.

Like Andrew, orf course they’d far rather go with their pals but they’re intelligent enough not to turn down the chance to see live a band they’ve listened to and liked when the old man’s buying the tickets.

And we’re not just talking about the golden oldies such as Deep Purple, The Scorpions and UFO.

Two generations of the two families will be at the Carling Academy next week to see Airbourne and I suspect we won’t be the only such generation-busters there.

So yes, the term Dad rock does tick quite a few of the boxes but let’s face it the only reason Culture Club, Duran Duran and ABC weren’t given this description is because today’s kids realise how crap that music is.

One thing does worry me, however.

If we 40-something Dads had been influenced in the same way as our kids are today, would we be walking around wearing trilbys and braces, listening to Glenn Miller and his orchestra?

Ian Murtagh

November 7, 2008

I wasn’t exactly dragged kicking and screaming to the gig.

But let’s just say the Australian Pink Floyd’s concert at Newcastle’s Tyne Theatre six years ago didn’t figure too highly in Self Made Man’s social diary.

You see, I had an aversion to ‘tribute bands’. To me the word tribute was a euphemism for fake, false, pretend and not real.

Two and a half hours later, I’d been won over by the technical brilliance of APF.

I saw them at the Sunderland Empire 12 months later and haven’t missed one of their concerts at the Newcastle Arena since.

In fact, I can say with some certainty that I’ll be there the next time they tour.

In the past six months, however, mates of mine have tried to persuade me to see tribute acts of Led Zeppelin, AC/DC and Free but I’ve been less keen.

So what’s the difference?

I was fortunate to see Pink Floyd at Earls Court in 1994 and was blown away by the spectacle, the sound and the occasion.

And  I can honestly say that the Aussie band have left me feeling equally exhilarated.

Their success owes much to the lack of personality in the genuine article.

The Pink Floyd experience was both sonically sublime and visually stunning but in a sense the four musicians themselves were almost incidental to the overall effect

The band created on of the most spectacular stage shows in rock history when they toured for the last time 14 years ago  but quite frankly, it could have been anyone playing the instruments - and that’s exactly how
they planned it.

While the Aussie Pink Floyd can’t quite replicate the multi-million pound lightshow, from a musical point of view, they are note perfect.

The fact they look nothing like David Gilmour, Roger Waters, Nick Mason or Rick Wright doesn’t matter because it never mattered what that quartet looked like in the grand scheme of things.

One day, I will definitely take in one of the Zeppelin acts doing the rounds and the fact AC/DC are shamefully ignoring the North East, means I’ll probably go and see a tribute act playing their music.

But Bon Scott and John Bonham had and Angus Young, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant still have a stage presence which was crucial to their act.

Imposters may successfully copy the sound but find it impossible to re-create the dynamism and charisma of these rock gods..

Tribute bands, however, are here to stay and will become increasingly popular and important as the originals die off.

And anyway, the definition of what constitutes a tribute band - or indeed the real thing - is becoming increasingly blurred.

Some Zeppelin fans would accuse Page and John Paul Jones of forming a tribute band of their former selves if they carry out their threat of recording and touring with a singer other than Plant.

Queen fans still cry foul whenever they hear Paul Rodgers singing songs made famous by Freddie Mercury (though on the evidence of Tuesday’s show, none of the sceptics were at the Arena)

On the other hand, several Thin Lizzy fans I know swear blind Limehouse Lizzy are streets ahead of the Phil Lynott-less band still calling itself by the initial name.

Thirty years ago,  Rainbow fans claimed the band died the day Richie Blackmore fired Ronnie James Dio and it’s subsequent incarnations were merely off-shoots.

The debate will rage on but one fact is unequivocal.

If we rock fans want to carry on listening to the music we’ve  loved  in a live environment for years to come, then all of us will, sooner or later, have to embrace the culture of tribute acts.

Ian Murtagh

October 31, 2008

Came across a copy of Sounds (RIP) the other day from 1980 and it made for fascinating reading - especially the results of the Readers Poll.

Best guitarist - Richie Blackmore, Best album The Wall by Pink Floyd, Best Group  - Led Zeppelin etc etc. Best Newcomer - Praying Mantis (whatever happened to?).

But the results which really interested me were sexiest female.

Had I guessed the contenders 28 years on, I’d probably have got most of them though not necessarily in the correct order.

Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks (who came first and who I’m sure I voted for), Kate Bush, Debbie Harry, Sally James of TISWAS fame were there along with Catherine Bach who starred in the recently-launched TV series Dukes of Hazzard and who’d have walked away with the title had their been a best rear of the year category.

Anyway, the list confirmed to me that we hot-blooded adolescent rockers had impeccable taste in the opposite sex. Had that New Wave bible, the NME carried such a poll (not that it would have done considering it was politically correct even before the term had been devised), the list, with the possible exception of the Blondie’s Harry  would have been crammed with indescribably ugly punk rockers. (Polly Styrene anyone?)

Back to that Sounds poll and the one name I’ve deliberately left until last. Pat Benatar.

It hit me right between the eyes because, you see, I’d forgotten all about the delightful Miss Benatar.

I was quite a fan of her in my youth and still have her albums on vinyl - Precious Time, Crimes of Passion and Get Nervous.

And I recall seeing her play a quite imperious gig at a sold-out Newcastle City Hall in the early 80s. I can remember thinking at the time that the sound was the cleanest, crispest and sharpest I’d ever heard.

Of the 200 odd records in my collection, I would estimate I’ve replaced at least 80 per cent with CDs but not poor Pat Benatar.

In fact, considering I no longer own a record player (and no, dear wife, I’m not getting rid of those records gathering dust on the bottom shelf of the bookcase!) and even Planet Rock doesn’t play her stuff, I can’t remember the last time I heard Benatar’s dulcid tones.

As regular readers of this blog will know, my interest in music cooled in the late-80s which, coincided with a decline in Benatar’s popularity.

I’ve just looked that up on Wikipedia incidentally because, for 20 years or so, I hadn’t given her career a moment’s thought.

I can’t accurately explain why I’ve never considered buying a Pat Benatar CD when I’ve replaced records by groups such as Cheap Trick, Boston and Journey who I didn’t like nearly as much at the time. Sorry Trish!

PS. If this blog is considerably shorter _ or perhaps you’d prefer the term ‘less long-winded’ than previous ones, then blame/thank/reward rushonrock‘s editor for nicking my original idea and writing about it on his increasingly wonderful home page.

Yes, Simon, you’re right in the fact that your teenage years do tend to define your musical tastes.

But if Blow Up Your Video is your favourite AC/DC album because it was the first one you bought, then all I can say is thank God I’m almost 10 years older than you!

Ian Murtagh

October 24, 2008

Isn’t it about time we rock fans went on the offensive?

Because let’s face it, we seem to spend half of our lives defending the music we love.

Just a week ago, a mate of mine was talking about the gig he’d been to at The Sage. His revelation was met by instinctive nods of approval from many of those present even though they’d probably not even heard of Tom Russell (neither had I).

For the record, the aforesaid Mr Russell is apparently Johnny Cash’s heir and the late and great country and western legend is cool. So there!

I announced I’d been to see The Scorpions 24 hours earlier and despite insisting it was one of the best concerts I’d witnessed in 2008, the reaction was distinctly different.

You see it’s been decreed that the mighty Scorps aren’t cool.

Now I’ll admit the Scorpions’ lyrics can leave them open to ridicule at times.

And songs belonging to the hard rock genre do tend to have limited subject matter.

But I’m proud of the music I listen to and so should you be.

In fact, I’ve decided to compile a brief list of reasons why I believe rock music rules OK.

Feel free to use any of this material the next time someone tells you that your CD collection is ‘uncool’.

1 Eighteen of the top 30 best selling albums of all-time belong to the rock genre with AC/DC’s Back in Black, Pink Floyd’s The Wall, Boston’s eponymous debut, Rumours by Fleetwood Mac, Led Zeppelin IV and The Eagles’ Greatest Hits all in the top ten.

2 Every poll ever conducted of best guitarists, bassists, or drummers is inevitably crammed with musicians from our favourite bands. Page, Clapton, Gilmour and Blackmore, Entwistle, Bruce and Squire, Bonham, Peart and Palmer. The list goes on…

3 The biggest grossing concerts of recent years have been U2, Springsteen, Aerosmith, Rush, Foo Fighters and Iron Maiden. AC/DC are set to eclipse all of them. And don’t forget Led Zeppelin’s O2 reunion was the biggest-ever one-off concert in terms of demand.

4 Classic Rock fans tend to be more loyal than fans with other musical tastes. Most 40-somethings who liked Zeppelin, Floyd or Neil Young in their youth probably still do. Those who preferred pop to rock have tended to drop their interest in music. Don’t believe me? Check it our with your own mates.

5 Not just loyal but devoted too. Surveys prove we listen to more hours of music every week, spend more on CDs, concerts, downloads and merchandise and read more relevant literature either in magazines or websites. (You’re proving this point right now!)

6 Most of us aren’t stuck in a time-warp nor do we shut our minds to other kinds of music. On a recent blog, I confessed I liked Abba. This month, I’ve bought new releases by Keane,  Kings of Leon and the Kaiser Chiefs. A lot of my mates have similarly catholic tastes. We’re not the blinkered ones.

7 OK, we can’t dance, rap, moonwalk or swing our jackets over our heads and some of us (yes, I’m talking about you Matthew!) no longer have the hair to headbang. but at least our air guitars are low maintenance.

8 And finally (don’t take this one too seriously either ) rock fans go to proper pubs  drink decent beer and don’t wear poncey gear. When was the last time you saw someone dressed in an Hawaii shirt order a half of lager and lime before sticking Deep Purple on the juke box?

So just remember, be loud, be proud and stay cool.

And next time a mate tells you he’s just bought the latest Dizzee Rascal release, give him your best mocking look and snigger.

See how he likes it.

Ian Murtagh

October 17, 2008

Question. What do AC/DC have in common with The Beatles and Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band?

Led Zeppelin, Radiohead and The Eagles also belonged in this category until a few months ago.

While Def Leppard and Bad Company can claim associate membership. Anyone who has an iPod library will probably know the answer.

The first three groups have all refused to allow their music to be iTuned. And this means that anyone importing their CDs won’t be able to display the cover art.

I’m probably not alone in being frustrated at the fact that while my Pink Floyd, REM, Neil Young or Rush collections can be found in glorious technicolour in my computer library, albums by The Beatles and AC/DC can only be identified by name with  the sleeves left a horrible grey blank.

Several more obscure albums and compilations can’t have their artwork imported while for some strange reason, such notable releases as Def Leppard’s Hysteria and Pyromania and Bad Company’s Straight Shooter and Run With The Pack are also bereft of design.

Which all leads neatly on to the big news of this weekend - the forthcoming release of AC/DC’s first new album since 2008.

Black Ice may not have the most eyecatching artwork I’ve ever seen but given a choice, I’d like to have it available to me when I buy and then import the CD first thing on Monday morning.

AC/DC, however, are holding firm with Malcolm Young claiming he’s against the whole iTunes phenomena because he believes the band’s music should be listened to in its album entirety.

It’s a concept rock fans can broadly agree with because the genre’s success has largely been based on album sales rather than hit singles. And I’m uneasy about the new trend of cherry-picking songs from a band’s collection.

Let’s face it, Pink Floyd’s Any Colour You Like is a fairly mundane track on its own but by being sandwiched in between Us And Them and Brain Damage, it takes on a whole new dimension.

With albums, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Songs can take on another life simply by where they are placed on the record.

Modern technology, however, does allow us to skip tracks far more easily than in the days of rewinding or carefully placing a stylus on to a groove.

And while I empathise with Young’s philosophy, I can think of several great albums which would even better without one particularly track on them.

Who listens to Seamus on Pink Floyd’s Meddle?

Wouldn’t Rainbow’s Long Live Rock and Roll be so much improved without the dreadful closing track Rainbow Eyes?

Does Rush’s 2112 really need the tedious Lessons on it? And while we’re on the subject, too many releases by AC/DC post-1982, peak after two or three tracks.

Come on admit it, when was the last time you listened to The Razors’ Edge in its entirety? Goodbye and Good Riddance To Bad Luck and If You Dare are 11th and 12th in the running order and add absolutely nothing to the most rollercoaster release of the Aussies’  34 year career.

I’ll make this promise to Malcolm and his mates. I’ll listen to Black Ice in its entirety, four, five, probably six times in the first two days.

Hopefully, I’ll love it so much that I won’t want to skip any tracks.

But the chances are that like everyone else, I’ll develop my own personal favourites and will use today’s technology to facilitate my choices.

AC/DC have nothing to fear from this. Black Ice will sell by the bucketload and I doubt their continued boycott of iTunes will have anything to do with this.

So bury the hatchet boys and let’s have the AC/DC collection proudly displayed in all its glory in our digital libraries.

Ian Murtagh

October 11, 2008

If football matches were like rock concerts, then football would be a hell of a lot more enjoyable.

You see, I’ve been to hundreds of games over the years and a lot of them have been absolute garbage.

In fact, I’d say that dud games have probably outweighed belters by a two to one ratio though that might have something to do with the fact that over 80 per cent have been in the North East!

I haven’t been to anything like as many gigs as games but I can probably count the bad ones on two hands.

If you think about it, the reverse should be the case.

After all footballers are finely honed athletes with lifestyles and training schedules supposedly geared to peaking for their once, sometimes twice a week matches.

Rock stars, in contrast, lead hedonistic lives, burn the candles at both ends and eat, drink and smoke what they like.

OK, that might not be as true today as it was 20 or 30 years ago but it never ceases to amaze me that bands are so consistently good live.

They perform five or six gigs week in, week out, travel thousands of miles across land and sea yet for two or three hours, to borrow footballing terminology, they give 110 per cent and, more often than not, play blinders.

Of course, some musicians are less reliable than others and this weekend I’m seeing one of them.

Michael Schenker is opening for The Scorpions at the Newcastle Academy and I’m nervous.

The Teutonic titan is one of the most talented guitarists around but over the years his live performances have fluctuated between  cringeworthy and mesmerising with alarming regularity.

Anyone who witnessed his last appearance at the City Hall will know exactly what I’m talking about.

It was the night before UFO’s infamous Manchester Apollo walk-out and it was clear Schenker was in no fit state to play live.

Having seen him at his majestic best two years earlier on UFO’s Walk on Water tour, this was the other side of Schenker and it made painful viewing and listening.

The word is that these days, he’s sober and playing well night in, night out.

I certainly hope so but the harsh  fact is that Schenker is the architect of his own downfalli.

Let’s face it, the reason, he isn’t headlining and packing out concert halls ithese days is because taking past evidence into account, many of his fans would fsee it as too much of a gamble forking out their hard earned cash not knowing what they were going to get from him.

I can count myself lucky that I haven’t been to that many poor gigs in this region. Some have disappointed but few have been real turn-offs

Back in 1980, I picked the wrong night to see Rainbow. There was nothing wrong with their performance that night - until I discovered that 24 hours later, they included Stargazer in the setlist and Richie Blackmore smashed his guitar. And my bloody brother was there to witness it!

A few months later, I found AC/DC’s City Hall show strangely flat considering it was Brian Johnson’s first appearance with the  band in his home city. It was a 7/10 show when we all expected a stonking 10.

In more recent times, below average gigs up here  have possibly owed more to the acoustics of the Arena than any particular fault of the band.

Poor sound and such gremlins are enormously frustrating but ultimately forgiveable.

Unprofessional performances are a pain and never forgiveable.

Herr Schenker, you have been warned.

And so for that matter, have the region’s football teams!

Ian Murtagh

October 3, 2008

What’s makes a great album?

Is it record sales or is it good reviews?

Does a memorable album sleeve play a part?

Or perhaps the way in which a record company markets the product is decisive?

I assume readers of this particular blog would agree that hit singles are not the chief critieria otherwise we’d all be singing the praise of Duran Duran, Michael Jackson and the Human League.

But it’s always intrigued me why, when and how a particular release has had the pretext ‘great’  bestowed upon it.

Not being musically literate at the time, I wouldn’t know the immediate reaction to The Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper’s :Lonely Heart Club Band, Pink Floyd’s The Piper at the Gates of Dawn or Disraeli Gear, the second release by supergroup Cream.

All three are now widely regarded as classics.

And within weeks of the release of Led Zeppelin’s self-titled first album, Jimmy Page’s new group were on their way to mega-stardom.

Zeppelin didn’t release a dud album in their 12 year career yet it’s a fair bet that if a straw poll was taken, their fourth would come top.

With Stairway To Heaven, Black Dog and Rock and Roll among the eights songs, it’s undoubtedly the most famous and probably the most accessible to.

But exactly when did Stairway to Heaven take on a life of its own. It certainly had nothing to do with the reviews in Sounds, NME and Melody Maker which gave IV very mixed write-ups.

I started buying Sounds about the time Pink Floyd released The Wall and from what I recall, it was given only two stars.

Yet The Wall has gone on to become one of the biggest sellers in rock history.

By that time, Dark Side Of The Moon had already taken its place in the pantheons of rock and today it is still hailed as one of the greatest albums of all time.

How much of that is down to the iconic cover? Probably not a lot though how many classic albums can you name with lousy sleeves?

Lousy record sales don’t  always equate to lousy music. Montrose’s first album didn’t make the charts, Eric Clapton’s Layla and other love songs didn’t sell well nor did Jeff Beck’s Truth album.

More than three decades on and they’re all ‘critically acclaimed’.

Marketing and PR can play a key role in the success of an album. Dire Straits’ Brothers in Arms coincided with the upsurge in CD sales, Whitesnake’s 1987 became synonomous with the growing popularity of MTV.

Even this year new albums by Metallica, Def Leppard, Whitesnake have fared better than their most recent predecessors because of a more prominent advertising campaign.

To answer the question posed at the beginning of this piece, surely it’s music that has to be the determining factor in deciding what makes a great album.

What therefore makes a dud album? The answer’s not necessarily the same.

The reason I ask is because the new album by Queen and Paul Rodgers has been slaughtered by music journalists on newspapers (though reviews have been significantly kinder in the music mags).

In my humble opinion, The Cosmos Rocks is outstanding and one of the best releases of 2008.

I would say that because I’m a massive fan of Paul Rodgers and perhaps that lies at the heart of the debate.

Those who listened to it with preconceived ideas about what Queen should sound like have given it a thumbs-down, those of us with preference for Free and Bad Company love the material.

Instant judgements, however, are notoriously inaccurate. A few years ago, I hailed The Scorpions’ Eye to Eye as a return to form. Ditto Aerosmith’s Just Push Play. Today I can’t remember the last time I listened to either of them.

Thirty odd years ago, I dismissed Dire Straits’ debut as a load of soporific rubbish but it’s grown on me ever since.

Indeed, if greatness equates to how many times I’ve listen to a particular album over the years, then I know my top five personal faves.

In no particularly order: Wish You Were Here – Pink Floyd; Physical Graffitti -Led Zeppelin; Strangers In The Night – UFO; On The Beach – Neil Young; Hemispheres – Rush.

Ian Murtagh

September 26, 2008

“Dad, what’s a cassette?” my eight-year-old son asked me the other day.

And who can blame him? After all, there hasn’t been a cassette around the place since our last big clear-out three years ago.

Anyway, what exactly is a cassette?  I defy anyone to describe it in a way which differentiates the product from a CD.

Fortunately, my youngest knows all about LPs although his definition would run something like this ‘they’re Dad’s collection of music gathering dust on the bottom shelf of the bootcase.’

And he’s right, they are gathering dust for the simple reason that we no longer have a record player.

But I bet there’s not one rock music fan out there who’s chucked out his collection of LPs even though you’ve got every single one of them on CD and the vinyl’s not been out of its sleeve for more than a decade.

Records however,arouse feelings of nostalgia that cassette’s can’t.

It’s not the size, nor even those wonderful gatefold sleeves which CDs have found impossible to replicate.

They’re not particularly easy to store, they scratch far too easily and within a few years, the sleeves became frayed.

Yet LPs remain cherished possessions in households across the land while few have shed tears for their cassette cousins, very much consigned to history’s dustbin.

There was one period in my life when the cassette ruled OK and I bet I’m not the only forty-something who had a brief fling.

Yet the cassette was also indirectly responsible for a five or six year spell when I fell out of love with music.

It was after I’d bought my second car and it had a music system in it.

Having already given up on Radio One (apart from Steve Wright in the Afternoon), it allowed me to play MY music when I WANTED.

At the time, I was trying to expand my musical tastes and so rather than buy stuff on cassette I already owned on vinyl, I experimented.

Between the years 1985 and 1988 all the new music I bought was on cassette.

It ruined the symmetry of my music library with Aerosmith’s Permanent Vacation, Pink Floyd’s Momentary Lapse of Reason, Rush’ s Hold Your Fire, Whitesnake’s 1987 and Deep Purple’s Perfect Strangers not being placed alongside their many predecessors.

I also remember buying albums by Mister Mister, The Eurythmics, the Thompson Twins, Madonna and Talking Heads and with the window of my Nissan Cherry wound down, my eclecticism was audible enough for the whole world to hear.

Then came that fateful day when the music died. My car was broken into and my entire cassette collection was stolen. All 60 albums which had been hidden under the front seats in three leather-bound containers.

It was devastating and potentially middle-ageing when I used the insurance money to pay off debts rather than replace the stolen items.

For a few weeks, I took solace in my record collection but can’t recall buying any albums for several years.

The arrival of CDs meant nothing to me (they’ll never catch on!!!), I no longer read the music press and even stopped going to concerts.

Then in 1994, I was walking past a record shop when I spotted a huge poster announcing a new Pink Floyd album was being released. It convinced me to walk into the shop where I was confronted by row upon row of CDs with records (yes and cassettes!!) far less prominent.

The revolution had arrived and I’d turned my back on it.

The Division Bell ensured I would embrace the future and within a week, I’d bought a new music system and four CDs to restart my collection (and can anyone remember the free stacking shelves they used to give away?)

Pink Floyd’s final studio album was followed by Welcome To the Neighbourhood by Meatloaf, Oasis’ s Morning Glory and On Every Street by Dire Straits.

Today I have 729 CDs, 212 LPs and no cassettes.

Ian Murtagh

September 19 2008

THE death of Pink Floyd keyboard player Richard Wright didn’t just upset me, it got me thinking.

For there’s the sobering prospect of quite a few more of our musical heroes taking the journey to that Great Gig In The Sky in the not too distant future.

By definition ‘classic rock’ is about music that has stood the test of time and been around for at least 20 years but probably much longer.

That means that most of the musicians we are listening to are in their late 50s or early to mid-60s.

Now I’m not for one minute suggesting the bell’s tolling for Messieurs Clapton, Page, Plant, Gillan or Gilmour.

In fact that illustrious quintet look as fit and healthy as they’ve ever looked.

And thankfully, in this day and age, 65 is almost tragically young. The late, great Wright died at least a decade too early.

But let’s face it, over the next ten, 15 years the law of averages dictates that some of his peers will pass away.

Death, it used to be said, formed an integral part of rock n’roll. Pete Townsend even wrote about it in My Generation.

Like everyone else, he couldn’t imagine life as a wrinkly.

I was too young to be affected by the deaths of Jimi Hendrix, Brian Jones, Jim Morrison or Janis Joplin and I’m too old to have been hit hard when Kurt Cobain committed suicide.

But I can empathise by those who were for in my formative years, two of my great heroes died prematurely.

I cried when a mate broke the news that Bon Scott had been found dead. The fact AC/DCs Mayfair gig had been cancelled just a few weeks before due to a fire, made it even worse.

I was hit even harder on hearing that Led Zeppelin’s John Bonham had left us. His passing was a double whammy because it wasn’t just the death of the greatest drummer on the planet but end of the greatest group too.

When Keith Moon died as well, it was almost as if the 60s trend was repeating itself.

Since then, most of my musical heroes have survived and indeed flourished.

Ten years ago, Cozy Powell was killed in a car crash and quite recently Boston singer Brad Delp committed suicide.

But I was beginning to think time was standing still. David Coverdale’s voice isn’t quite what it once was but watching him cavort on stage during Whitesnake’s recent tour, he looked at least 10 years younger than his 56.

Ian Gillan, too, could put men half his age to shame. Aerosmith duo Joe Perry and Steve Tyler seem to have discovered the secret of eteral youth  while in October last year, Rush’s Geddy Lee looked exactly the same as he did on his last appearance in Newcastle _ 28 years earlier.

That’s why Richard Wright’s death has hit me. These guys aren’t immortal after all.

Going to concerts can be poignant occasions these days. I’m sure I can’t be the only one to have left a Rush, Deep Purple, Dio, Whitesnake or Aerosmith concert over the past 18 months or so wondering if I’ve just watched those bands for the last time.

Incidentally, if it’s poignancy you want, listen to the last 55 seconds of Shine On You Crazy Diamond on Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here.

Hearing those closing keyboards on Monday night was unbearably emotional.

Ian Murtagh

September 12 2008

I’ll come clean - after all it’s more than 30 years since I committed the ‘crime’.

I once bought an Abba record.

It was their Greatest Hits and included the tracks Fernando, Chiquitita and The Winner Takes It All. Tunes I enjoyed listening to then and still do now.

In fact, while I’m in confessional mode, I’ll go the whole way and admit there are a few more Abba songs I like.

And while I’m pleading guilty to these offences, M’Lud, can I ask for 47 further ones to be taken into consideration?

You see, I may be a rock fan but I’m quite eclectic in my music tastes, always have been, always will be.

I suspect I’m not the only one either. And it’s a hell of a lot easier to admit it in 2008 than it was in 1978. Back then, music was very much compartmentalised.

You were either one of us or one of them.. or them ..or them …..or even worse, them!

School discos weren’t so much community events as the unnatural coming together of alien sects.

There was us with our denim jackets, faded jeans, long hair and real ale, skulking in one corner as the DJ played his pop music.

Opposite were the punks with their snotty noses, ripped drainpipes, safety pins and snakebites feeling equally aggrieved at the mainstream strains.

And then there were the would-be John Travoltas, with their flash shirts, polished shoes, mainstream haircuts and half of lager and limes.

They’d spend all their time on the dance-floor chatting up the girls who loved them for their smart appearance, sensible behaviour and taste in music.

The Travoltas would only vacate centre-stage for two 30 minute periods when the punks and the rockers got their turn.

Those 30 minutes of headbanging were gratefully received even though the playlist seemed to be identical at school discos across the land.

(Rosalie – Thin Lizzy, Rock and Roll – Led Zeppelin,  Doctor Doctor – UFO, I Want You To Want Me – Cheap Trick, Bat Out of Hell – Meatloaf, Since You’ve Been Gone – Rainbow and, to finish, Hi Ho Sliver Lining – Jeff Beck. Spot the connection?)***

So there we were in our party lines, never the twain meeting. Right?

Well not strictly true, actually because it’s since emerged that I wasn’t the only one hiding a dark, forbidden secret.

Back then, everyone was fiercely loyal to their chosen genre in public but it was a different story, privately.

Only in later years did I realise I wasn’t the only one who had The Stranglers’ No More Heroes a couple of LPs by The Jam, numerous punk singles and too many mainstream records to mention.

And yes, there were others whose alphetically-ordered collection didn’t start with AC/DC!

It was just that, back then, it wasn’t cool to boast about your varied tastes (though it was considered the height of coolness to tell your mates what you’d like to do to the blonde bird in Abba!)

Of course there were occasions when it was de rigeur to shake off the shackles, forget your principles and swing those hips to the sounds of the 70a.

Getting off time.

With the clock approaching midnight, even the most hardened rocker didn’t want to be the one sitting in the corner watching everyone else arm in arm with their chosen girl.

Or to be more specific, those not already claimed by the Travoltas with their ‘pass the sick bucket’ chat-up lines.

Having to put up with Spandau Ballet’s True or The Commodores’ Three Times A Lady was a price worth paying if it meant a snog at the end of a night.

And telling the object of your desires that you were a closet Abba fan, worked a damn sight more effectively than recounting the set list at the last Motorhead gig you attended!

***All songs that could be bought in seven inch form.

Ian Murtagh

September 5 2008

August 29 2008

IT was Leeds United who started it with Survivor’s  Eye Of The Tiger - a song forever associated with the Rocky films.

And considering the Leeds side back then included renowned hardmen such as Vinnie Jones, Chris Kamara and Ian Baird, the boxing analogy was highly appropriate.

Elland Road has always been one of football’s most intimidating arenas and their decision to blast rock music out of the tannoys as the players ran out only fuelled the gladiatorial atmosphere.

And Leeds set a trend which has been followed by many clubs since.

In more recent times, Newcastle have played AC/DC’s Thunderstruck as their `entrance theme.’

They actually got the idea from Norwegian side Valarenga who blasted it out at full volume before the UEFA Cup game against the Geordies.

Apparently, an influential Toon officlal was so impressed with the effect it had on the home crowd, he instructed the St James’s Park DJ to play it on a regular basis.

Here in the North East, Sunderland have stuck to Prokofiev’s Dance of the Knights ever since moving to the Stadium of Light while Middlesbrough have stayed loyal to Pigbag and it has to be said, both remain popular with their fans.

But there has been rock music played at both venues. On the night Sunderland’s new ground opened, Status Quo played a 25 minute set although at the request of former club chairman Bob Murray, they did not include Down Down since the Black Cats had just been relegated from the top flight.

Boro haven’t hosted any major bands yet but their resident DJ seems to like his rock music. The Who’s Won’t Get Fooled Again is regularly played before kick off along with Hotel California by The Eagles.

At Newcastle too. Led Zeppelin’s Rock And Roll is frequently heard while at half time against Chelsea last season, Pink Floyd’s wonderfully enchanting Shine On You Crazy Diamond (or at least five minutes of it) floated through the air, delighting the Daily Telegraph’s rock-loving Football Correspondent Henry Winter so much, he imentioned it in his match report.

Hartlepool whose mascot H`Angus the monkey became so popular, he was elected Town Mayor, run out to AC/DC’s Whole Lotta Rosie and anyone who owns a copy of the live album If You Want Blood, will know why.

And by the way, that monkey sure plays a fine air guitar!

Queen’s We Will Rock You can be heard at grounds throughout the country as can We Are The Champions at virtually every club celebrating some achievement.

To these ears, rock music with it’s passion, rhythm and fist-pumping excitement, is the perfect companion to football and invariably helps create a sense of theatre.

Yet I often wonder what the footballers themselves think about the music their clubs choose.

For players tend to hate the genre. Thirty years ago, they listened to the Bees Gees and 20 years ago, Phil Collins was the musician of choice. Now all of them seem to like hip-hop and garage.

In other words, footballers have crap musical taste.

Yet they have the cheek to mock the music of those team-mates who aren’t tone-deaf.

Take the Boro dressing-room for example. On Gareth Southgate’s decision to appoint Emmanual Pogatetz as club captain, players expressed alarm, because they were worried he’d provide the weekly set-list.

Now I don’t share  the Austrian’s love of thrash metal but surely a five minute blast of Metallica would be more inspirational than some of music that’s recently been heard coming out of there.

Pog used to have a few supporters in the Boro camp. Mark Viduka loves AC/DC while Chris Riggott is a big Zeppelin fan but they were always outnumbered.

And it’s the same in dressing rooms up and down the nation. Even Alan Shearer had trouble getting his favourite band U2 played before Newcastle games.

Football and rock music may mix but footballers and rock sadly don’t.

Ian Murtagh

August 22 2008

Are you a fan of heavy metal or do you prefer heavy rock?

Maybe hard rock’s your thing?

Or perhaps you’re reading this thinking it’s the stupidest, weirdest, most pointless introduction to a blog you’ve ever seen!

Well actually, I agree with you but a few years ago, I might not have.

And as a sixth former back in the days when the abbreviation NWOBHM sounded like a life-threatening disease rather than an exciting offshoot of heavy/hard rock/metal, it was a question which provoked heated discussions in common rooms up and down the land.

The roots of this debate can be traced back to the early days of Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Black Sabbath when some lazy music journalist branded them all heavy metal just because they all included loud and prominent rhythm sections, thunderous riffs and vocalists who’d improvise as much as the musicians backing them.

By the time Zeppelin released their third album, it was obvious they were too diverse and eclectic to be pigeon-holed in such a manner.

And the same could be said for Deep Purple, particularly when the bluesy David Coverdale replaced Ian Gillan.

Anyway the die was cast and those of us who liked the music were labelled heavy metal fans.

Many non-rock fans (usually readers of NME) used it as a term of derision and some of us _rightly or wrongly _ took it as such. Me included.

As a 17-year-old, I can remember devising my own criteria for what I was exactly (and I’m strictly talking in music terms here!).

And I reached the conclusion that I was not a heavy metal fan but a heavy rock fan.

You see I didn’t particularly like Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden or Saxon, all four of whom were undoubtedly HM.

But Rush, Rainbow, UFO and The Scorpions were among my favourite bands. They weren’t quite as heavy as the previous quartet and they all possessed qualities which I believed disqualified them from that HM tag.

Rush’s lyrics were thought-provoking, Rainbow’s music was classically-influenced while albums by UFO and the Scorpions invariably included ballads. Heavy rock bands _ definitely.

Then Ronnie James Dio joined Black Sabbath, the quintessential metal band and suddenly they sounded more Rainbow than Richie Blackmore’s own band (which was gradually drifting towards MOR or even AOR but that’s for another day!).

Still I was comforted by an interview in Sounds (RIP) by Angus Young who claimed he’d sue anyone who called AC/DC a metal band. Apparently, the Aussie megastars were `power-blues’ according to their lead guitarist.

Blimey, I thought. Maybe I’m not a heavy rock fan but the past few years I’d been a secret power-blues fan without even realising it.

Anyway let’s skip forward two decades to the day I buy my first I-pod and start importing my CDs.

To my horror, in the genre category, UFO’s magnificent Strangers In The Night _ the greatest live album in history _ was labelled metal.

For days I pondered suing Apple.

A year or two later, a re-mastered version of the same album was released which I bought because it included two extra tracks.

Surprise, surprise, this time the album had turned into a `rock’ album.

It set me thinking. Perhaps someone had beaten me to it and taken legal action against Apple who were forced to right a terrible wrong.

An interview with Ian Gillan in Classic Rock around this time brought me to my senses.

In it, he rejected claims that Deep Purple were a classic rock band and hated the very term because they were still bringing out new, modern music.

His was a daft argument but suddenly it dawned on me, so was mine.

Heavy metal, hard rock etc etc. Does it really matter?

The fact of the matter is that Gillan is a rock singer, I’m a rock fan and I presume everyone reading this article would cite rock as the music of their choice.

Whichever road any of us travel down, it still leads to rock n’roll heaven.

Ian Murtagh

August 15 2008

The Scorpions’ return to Newcastle in November brings memories flooding back of previous visits to this region.

And they’re not all pleasant.

Back in May 1980, on the back of the release of their hugely successful Animal Magnetism album,  tickets to see the German rockers at the City Hall were like gold dust.

In those pre-internet days, tickets could be bought one of two ways _ either by going to the box office personally (and this often resulted in overnight queuing)  or by postal applications.

Anyway to cut a long story short (parents wouldn’t allow us to queue with O ‘level exams on the horizon), my mate Mike and I applied by post and were unsuccessful.

But we had a plan, a very cunning one.

Being skint schoolboys, buying tickets off touts was never a realistic option  especially when they were trying to flog £3 tickets for a whopping fiver.

Instead, we decided to break in to the City Hall.

So we sneaked around the back of the building and managed to negotiate the outer wall before climbing up without being spotted.

A couple of fairly tricky leaps later, we were outside a window just as the first notes of Loving You Sunday Morning could be heard.

The plan was working to perfection, or so we thought.

We just needed to open the window, pull back the curtain and we’d be in. Right? Well, yes, sort of. But….

And I’m afraid it was a very big BUT.

For we’d overlooked one rather obvious fact when we drew up our plans for the `break-in.’

With the City Hall in total darkness save for the lights on stage, by opening the curtains, we let in a bright shaft of light, visible to all in the balcony.

And so in the very instant Mike and I were basking in premature glory, hundreds of pairs of eyes were temporarily distracted from watching Klaus Meine and the boys with their sights firmly fixed on two startled adolescents, who, very quickly, had transformed themselves from smug conquistadors to startled rabbits in headlights.

Those eyes, unfortunately included two pairs belonging to a couple of  beefy, unfriendly bouncers who frogmarched us downstairs before contacting the police.

Twenty minutes later and after a stern talking to, we were released without further repercussions.

Thankfully, the two of us got tickets for the Scorpions next tour which I believe was just six months later.

Not just tickets but front row tickets _ and I’ve still got the photographs to prove it.

I haven’t seen the band since having missed their return to Newcastle three years ago when they played at the Arena with Judas Priest.

But having bought the excellent Wacken DVD, I can vouch for the fact that they’re just as good as they were all those years ago.

And before you ask, yes, I have bought my tickets for their gig at the Carling Academy.

How else am I supposed to see them?!!

Footnote: To this day, Mike swears blind that he was still behind the curtain when I was caught and would have made his escape but for his so-called mate grassing him up!  The charge is denied vehemently.

Ian Murtagh

August 8 2008

You can forget about UK sprinter Marlon Cavendish winning any medals in Beijing.

And sadly, the British girls who are being tipped for sailing glory are set to fail too.

For they’ve all chosen the wrong music to stick on their I-pods.

Over the past fortnight, Five Live have been asking our Olympians what they’ll be listening to over the next fortnight and a predictably eclectic range of tunes has been aired.

Now I’ve got nothing against the lass who revealed that she’d be playing The Hollies’ Air That You Breathe in her quest for gold (though isn’t there something quite ironic about the title bearing in mind Beijing’s notorious pollution?)

But it’s hardly inspirational music.

As for Cavendish’s list of hip-hop, garage, dance and Rn’B ( and by the way,  can’t we rockers reclaim that pariticular title for ourselves? ), I must confess I’m unashamedly biased against such genres.

Encouragingly, rock music has its share of supporters among the British athletes and I’ll be watching with interest when the canoeist who regularly listens to AC/DC’s Back in Black takes to the rapids.

Not only has he exceptionally good taste in music, he’s a sensible lad too.

For in the humble opinion of this tunnel-visioned, biased aficianado, it’s blinding obvious that rock is the most effective music to stir the passions, get the blood pumping and the hairs on the back of the neck aroused.

Qualities surely required for peak sporting prowess.

My own musical tastes are quite wide-ranging, taking in most strands of rock from Knopfler, REM, Neil Young, The Eagles, Bob Seger  and newer bands such as Kasabian, Kings of Leon and The Killers right through to Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, UFO, Rush and Free.

But I’ve found out to my cost that catholic tastes are no recipe for exercise.

Years ago, I would have my I-pod on shuffle as I tackled the treadmill or rowing machine at my gym.

It just didn’t work. Much as I’m partial to Kate Bush’s latest album, I’m afraid Aerial isn’t conducive to running five kilometres in 25 minutes (yes, I know it’s not that impressive).

And I’m afraid large chunks of my Floyd collection are more geared to be listened to with a glass of red wine in hand with feet firmly up on settee.

So these days when I go to the gym, my mind’s in album mode as I prepare for my daily (well, five times a week actually) grind.

The criteria’s straightforward. For maximum performance, classy, relentless, bone-crunching rock is a pre-requisite.

It means some of my favourite rock albums can’t be considered because they include the dreaded ballad.

I’ve nothing against light and shade but come on, you don’t want to be listening to the Scorpions’ Lady Starlight when it’s predecessors on Animal Magnetism (the magnificent Make It Real and Don’t Make No Promises) have just sparked you into some sort of athletic life.

Even the mighty Zeppelin fail the Treadmill Test on occasions. Take Houses of the Holy for instance. The Song Remains The Same is wonderfully appropriate only to be followed by the haunting, relaxing melody of The Rain Song.

So what will I be listening to tonight when I get to the gym (before undoing all the good work with copious quantities of real ale _ and I heartily recommend the Wylam bitter at The County in Gosforth).

Well, anything from AC/DC’s catalogue is a pretty safe option with Big Balls the nearest Bon Scott came to balladry. (Not the song to listen to when you’ve been sitting on a hard saddle for 30 minutes mind you!!).

Rainbow Rising, Aerosmith’s Toys In The Attic and Whitesnake’s 1987 are guaranteed to send pulses racing while modern-day material from Airborne, The Answer and Big Linda are worth listening to in your gym kit.

But the perfect album for those lung-busting moments has got to be UFO’s peerless live release Strangers in the Night. It’s The Natural Thing.

Now can someone please relay this information to the UK’s and Ireland’s athletes in China.

Ian Murtagh